IJHC (The International Journal of Healing and Caring)

Paul Hawken. Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming

Hawken points out that the roots of our problems lie in our concepts and attitudes about our world. For instance, production and acquisition of material goods has become the primary focus and goal of the modern world, to the point that they are more important than people. This has shaped our mentality in self-destructive ways. Mass production and distribution of products become more economical and profitable through uniformity. Living systems thrive best on diversity, which provides a gene pool that can adapt to external challenges. However, in the name of enhancing efficiency of food production, distribution and sales, our diversity has been sacrificed and the biological pool of genetic resources has been systematically whittled down to the cheapest and most marketable varieties of edibles. This mind-set is core to the struggles of our modern world between the interests of business and industry and the interests of people and the environment.

In the pursuit of industrial and economic growth that has assumed the proportions of an ideology, natural resources have been over-exploited to the point that they are depleted. Our fish, trees, land and waters have been wantonly exploited, with little if any thought to the needs of tomorrow, much less to those of future generations. Similarly with people:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) seeks to establish commerce as the basis for governing the world. It is set up without checks and balances, as a dictatorial institution that can override local populations' wishes and needs.

The severity of the challenges has spawned both awareness and action groups. Hawken gives brief discursive summaries of several dozens of these, and many more as annotated references.

Hawken points out that every one of us bears a responsibility to participate in addressing these problems. The two basic rules to guide us must be the Golden Rule and the Sacredness of All Life. We must aim for a 'zero-waste society' or better, a restorative one.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough - to anyone interested in contributing to healing our modern societal illnesses and insanities and saving our world.

Maggie Phillips. Reversing Chronic Pain: A 10-point all-natural plan for lasting relief

Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books 2007. 228 pp. Refs. 4 pp Notes 15 pp. $17.95

Maggie Phillips has gathered an excellent assortment of methods for dealing with pain. These include breathing exercises; sorting out feelings about pain; relaxation; imagery; mindfulness; bioenergy approaches; movement; pendulating (alternating between constriction and expansion); love; and building on success. Each section has discussions, case examples, helpful exercises, notes and references.

Phillips' approach is very straightforward and practical, acknowledging that no single method is suitable for every person or every pain. This is an excellent book both for those needing help with pain relief and for therapists who want to learn diverse methods for dealing with pain.

Rob Luka. Helping Children Overcome Fear in a Medical Setting: A guide for healthcare professionals

Leicester, North Carolina: Wellness Training Center 2007. 204 pp $18.95 www.RobLuka.com

This is a lovely book about the therapeutic use of presence, distraction, and the creation of a healing atmosphere with expectations of child competence to deal with painful and/or frightening procedures. Rob Luka, a nurse who specializes in working with children who have diabetes, has three decades of experience with injections, medical and surgical procedures that children could find upsetting and painful.

Rob Luka is an experienced nurse who exudes love and caring in his writing, and obviously finds enormous pleasure in working with children. He discusses varieties of factors and approaches that we can activate to help children accept these treatments with a minimum of pain and suffering:

Luka illustrates his approaches with many helpful examples for how to deal with challenging situations. He gives the example of Sarah, a 5 year-old girl who was slowly absorbing his explanations to her and her mother about what it meant to have diabetes. All was going well till she realized blood would have to be drawn, and that it would be her blood. She ran to the clinic bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. Luka followed her:

Sharon Begley. Train Your Mind Change Your Brain: How a new science reveals our extraordinary potential to transform ourselves

New York: Random House 2007. 254 pp. Notes 13 pp. HB $24.95.

Imagine the illuminating thought that our brains are not fixed and immutable, but instead are malleable and capable of birthing new neurons even into the eighth decade of life.

Sharon Begley, a science columnist for the Wall Street Journal, writes about neuroscience, genetics, physics, astronomy, and anthropology. In 2004, Begley covered a historic meeting between five scientists and the Dalai Lama on the topic of neuroplasticity at the Mind and Life Institute. Neuroplasticity is a new science investigating whether the brain is capable of altering its structure by generating new neurons.

Train Your Mind. Change Your Brain is about the research of these scientists and how their explorations parallel Buddhist philosophy. In order to understand the wonders of this research this review will describe the contributions of each scientist to the field of neuroplasticity, as it was presented to the Dalai Lama. There is a brief description of the Dalai Lama's responses comparing Buddhist philosophy with some of these discoveries.

Fred Gage of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, made seminal discoveries in how environments can change brains. Gage told the Dalai Lama that one of his most important scientific discoveries, showed that the brain was not limited to the neurons it was born with and that even older adult brains were capable of generating new neurons. (p. 51) Gage's initial work revealed that mice placed in cages equipped with running wheels and toys showed evidence of neurogenesis, suggesting that physical activity alone could generate new brain cells, compared to the brains of mice in cages without running wheels and toys. He told his Holiness "It doesn't matter what age they [mice] are when they begin to live in the enriched environment. The senior-citizen mice got an even greater boost from their stimulating quarters than younger mice did." (p. 58)

Gage also discovered that any mouse exercise had to be voluntary; if forced, stress hormones inundated the brain, killing neurons. According to Gage, "The environment and our experiences change our brain, so who you are as a person changes by virtue of the environment you live in and the experiences you have." (p. 71)

Wanting to see if neurogenesis occurred in primates, Gage started searching for human subjects. A Swedish neurologist working in Gage's lab said that cancer patients were often injected with bromodeoxyuridine, or BrdU, because it marked newborn cells and was being used in some hospitals to show how many new malignant cancer cells were dividing and how rapidly this occurred. Gage's team reasoned that BrdU would work at tracking the birth of new neurons as well as it did tracking cancer cells, since both kinds of cells needed DNA and would reliably attach to BrdU. Gage and his team studied the brains of five deceased cancer patients who had been injected with BrdU during their treatment. He told the Dalai Lama: "All of the brains showed evidence of new neurons exactly where they had found neurogenesis in other species." (p. 64) Gage could now prove, through chemical analysis, that mature neurons were generated in patients in their fifties and seventies.

This discovery overturned generations of conventional neuroscience that claimed the human brain was limited to the neurons with which it was born, and was the first scientific evidence for neurogenesis in the adult human brain.

Buddhism teaches that all beings should be free from suffering. Their tradition teaches compassion and therefore experiments on animals were problematic. The Dalai Lama said that if the knowledge gained from these experiments benefited a large community of human beings and if they were carried out with compassion and care, then the research would have some moral justification as long as care and sensitivity to even the smallest of animals was maintained. He felt there was a great need for ethical constraints in any experiments. He said, "So, therefore, from that viewpoint, yes, we have some justification to use another animal's life, but while we are exploiting them, it must be with some feelings, some care." (p. 60)

Michael Meaney, from Montreal's McGill University, told the Dalai Lama that his work targeted a huge question in human development about how much of what we become reflects the genes we inherited and how much reflects the environment in which we grew up. Meaney had documented how the behavior of attentive mother rats affected their offspring's ability to handle stress compared to the behaviors of babies born to non-attentive mothers. He found that.experiences in early life, and the care and attention received from the mother altered their babies' reactions to stressful situations.

The Dalai Lama agreed, saying that it was important to raise an individual in a peaceful family and community, and in order to create a peaceful world, people in the next generation must be taught how to have a peaceful mind and how to become peaceful individuals. This is done by providing loving, compassionate and peaceful environments for children.

Helen Neville and her colleagues from the University of Oregon, while, working with the blind and deaf, discovered that the brain, when deprived of one sense, underwent a radical reorganization in the cortex. When the ears failed to respond to external stimulation, the auditory regions of the brain picked up signals from the retinas. In the blind, the response to hearing occurred in their visual cortex. By studying the blind, Neville found that cortical reorganization was the result of the lives they led, lives in which vision and hearing were absent. (p. 109)

In parallel with Neville's findings, Thupten Jinpa, a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and primary English translator for the Dalai Lama, stated "In Buddhism there is a claim that an advanced meditator can transfer sensory functions to different organs, so that visual activity can be performed by something other than the eyes and hearing by something other than the ears. In this case, a meditator can read with closed eyes." (p. 109)

Phillip Shaver, of the University of California, is a leader in the field of attachment theory. The focal point of attachment theory is on a child's sense of emotional security developed in the first years of life. He discovered that a person's sense of emotional security was based on early childhood experiences. Simply put, an avoidant mother will have an avoidant child; an anxious mother, an anxious child; a secure mother, a secure child. (p. 209) These early experiences have a powerful effect on individuals in how they interact later in life, how they respond in close adult relationships, their feelings about different ethnic groups and their willingness to help strangers. (p. 10) "With numerous studies showing that brain circuitry can be altered by experience, there is every reason to think that the circuitry underlying attachment can change, too." (p. 209)

According to the Dalai Lama, when someone is faced with a threat there is a natural tendency to seek a safe haven, to seek protection with someone or something that has the capacity to protect. In childhood it is important to grow up in a genuine atmosphere of loving-kindness. True human affections and compassion are necessary to survival. (p. 211)

Richard Davidson and colleagues found that the more hours someone spent practicing meditation the greater their attentional ability. (p. 224) Whether the mind acts directly on the brain, or whether the electrical signals jumping from neuron to neuron did so, did not really matter; what mattered was that thought, meditation and other manifestations of the mind could alter the brain and was a learnable skill. Monks wired to an electroencephalograph, while engaged in generating the compassion meditation, showed greater activity in their left prefrontal cortex, a site known to be associated with happiness as opposed to the right prefrontal cortex that is associated with unhappiness. The compassion meditation resulted in greater activation in those areas linked to love and empathy and can be generated through mental training. (p. 238)

Buddhist philosophy teaches that a person's happiness is not fixed, and through meditation a person can increase their capacity for compassion and happiness. (p. 241)

Being an older adult, I found these studies to be exciting and hopeful to those of us who do worry about the possible loss of our mental acuity. Train the Mind Change Your Brain, is fascinating. Everyone will find it very readable and interesting. This book illustrates how thoughts can change the brain through focus, training and effort. In conclusion, learning that our environment and our experiences can change our brain was probably the most freeing realization, personally, in the entire book. There is nothing in this book that I could critique negatively.

Review by Monte Mohr
Doctoral Student
Holos University Graduate Seminary
www.HolosUniversity.org

New York: Harper Collins, 1993 167 pp. $13.95

The Alchemist is Paulo Coelho's second book and one of numerous bestsellers. When Coelho was a young man, he traveled Latin America seeking spiritual experiences in the footsteps of the legendary Carlos Castaneda. The book centers on the main character, Santiago, discovering how to have faith and courage while confronting obstacles on the path of following his heart. The search for worldly goods turns into Santiago's discovery of his personal inner treasure and the transforming power of dreams.

Coelho suggests that people experience four obstacles when pursuing their personal dreams: 1) learning that nothing is impossible; 2) knowing what to do and following that knowing despite what others who love us might say; 3) fear of failure along the way; and 4) having a sense of guilt that we have achieved our dreams when others have not. The story of the Alchemist is centered on these four obstacles of Santiago, as he struggles to listen to his heart while pursuing his personal dream.

Santiago is a young shepherd who is herding sheep in the Andalusia countryside. He has a repetitive dream about a treasure hidden in the Pyramids of Egypt. Along the way, he meets a Gypsy woman and an old man calling himself the King of Salem, who tells Santiago that his only obligation is to realize his destiny by following his dream and the omens God left for him. By following his dream and nourishing his soul, he will also nourish the Soul of the World. "And when you want something, all the universe will conspire in helping you to achieve it." (p. 22) Santiago sells his sheep and strikes off to find his treasure so that he can afford to marry a merchant's daughter. He travels to Tangier in Africa and meets a young man who steals all his money. He meets a crystal merchant who gives him a job and together they unintentionally teach each other lessons in life about unfulfilled dreams.

After a year, Santiago has enough money to return home when he meets an Englishman searching for a famous Arabian alchemist living in a desert oasis. The Englishman's quest inspires Santiago to continue to pursue his dream of hidden treasure in Egypt. While at the oasis, he meets a young desert woman called Fatima and they fall in love. Santiago thinks he has found his treasure. However, destiny intervenes and Santiago is given an omen of warriors preparing to attack the oasis.

In the middle of the battle Santiago meets the Alchemist who tells him to continue to pursue his dream. Together, they strike out into the desert where the Alchemist teaches Santiago to listen to his heart, to use his intuition and to pay attention to omens and dreams. The two are taken captive and charged with being spies. The Alchemist hands over all of Santiago's money to the general who captured them, and tells him that Santiago is a great Alchemist who could turn himself into the wind and destroy the general's camp. The general gives them three days to prove such a task. The Alchemists tells the frightened Santiago not to give in to his fears. He tells him, "There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." (p. 141) Santiago is forced to let go of his fear and listen to his heart in order to hear the Language of the World. The Alchemist tells him, "Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested." (p. l32) Santiago reaches with his mind into the web of the world and finds the faith he needs to become the wind. The wind that day blew as it had never blown before and for generations stories were told about how a young boy had turned himself into the wind, destroying a powerful general's military camp. The general's men were terrified at Santiago's ability to turn himself into the wind and the following day the general set Santiago and the Alchemist free. He then continues his journey to the Pyramids only to find that his treasure was in a place he least expected, the place where he first started.

Paulo Coelho writes in a descriptive style that is charming, dramatic and thought provoking. The reader is guided lovingly into the story and learns along the way the alchemy that can be achieved, personally, when following a dream. Paulo Coelho is a first class storyteller, spinning his tale into an intricate web of wisdom about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. The Alchemist is brief and persuasive and will appeal to a general audience of readers, from the young to the more mature adult. This is enjoyable light reading, full of wisdom and magic.

Becker, Marty, with Danelle Morton. The Healing Power of Pets: Harnessing the Amazing Ability of Pets to Make and Keep People Happy and Healthy

New York: Hyperion 2002, 270 pp. US$23, CAD $33

Marty Becker is a veterinarian and writer who coauthored Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul. He is veterinary contributor to ABC TV's Good Morning America and is the chief veterinary correspondent for Amazon.com. He has a weekly newspaper column, The Bond, and is a contributing editor for Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy, popular pet magazines. He lives on a farm and has horses, dogs and cats.

The Healing Power of Pets is a feel-good book about the author's family and others who have been saved from possible death or have been healed by their pets. A prolapsed disc in Becker's neck changed his own lifestyle. His three dogs, LLLucky, Sirloin and Scooter, became his healing companions during his recovery. While he had appreciated the animals prior to this time, he became aware of a deeper bond forming with his dogs as they brought him back to health. The author began to appreciate each moment and each day when he observed their playful behavior. He says,

The reader is also introduced to the author's brother, Bob, and his parents and the special healing bonds they had with their dogs. The personal stories of his family and others give this book vitality and energy. We read about Mike and his dog Dakota who sniffed upcoming heart attacks and saved Mike from near death on more than one occasion. After pawing at Nancy's breast for days, Mia finally jumped at the breast, since Nancy had ignored the dog's initial actions. Nancy credits Mia with saving her life because Nancy felt a lump in that breast and underwent subsequent surgery and treatment for breast cancer.

While Becker recognizes the benefits of cats and other animals as family pets, he advocates dogs for a variety of reasons. For instance, dogs are social creatures and require attention and exercise. Thus, they give the owner the opportunity to exercise on a daily basis.

Whether Becker is describing the physical, mental or spiritual healing power of a pet, he includes scientific research to back up his claims. For example, when he writes about the benefits of childhood pets, the author includes a reference to a study of preschool children conducted by Robert Poresky, who developed a measurement tool called the Companion Animal Bonding Scale. A substantial bibliography of scientific studies further strengthens Becker's anecdotal stories of the healing power of pets. Such stories include those about animals giving value and importance to seniors either living independently or in nursing homes, and about a pet program for inner city children in New York City. The author notes that pets provide physical touch for many people who live alone; give owners a purpose in their day and provide interaction with others who may stop to admire the animal. Becker includes a variety of lifestyles in his argument for pets including the busy professional person, for whom pets provide the opportunity to slow down and appreciate the beauty of the moment.

Becker describes the perfect human/pet relationship as the "ultimate bond." (p. 240). He believes that through our pets "we have a practical, trusted, routine way to relate to nature, to break out of the shackles of mankind and its creations. This relationship...the Bond...is simple...healing power." (p. 254) To strengthen this bond and ensure readers get the right pet for them, the author provides detailed questionnaires about lifestyle and instructions for the care of pets.

The Healing Power of Pets gives readers the impetus to examine their own lives and the healing contribution which only a pet could provide.

Book review by Lynn Willis, PhD Candidate
HOLOS University Graduate Seminary
www.HolosUniversity.org

Shirley Humphreys Battie. Channeling: Use Your Psychic Powers to Contact your Spirit Guides

New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2006. 144 pp. $14.95

Shirley Humphreys Battie has written a short, thorough book on channeling. Her premise is that anyone has the ability to learn the skill and channel. The aim of this book is to show readers how to go into a trance, expand consciousness and heighten inner senses, so they can be fine tuned to receive messages from the world of spirit. Channeling is written so that any reader can peruse and comprehend it. It is not an academic book. It is concisely written, with a fairly long introduction to set the tenor of the book, and seven chapters to explain the author's premise. Many pertinent illustrations are interspersed throughout the book, along with boxed comments, exercises and other important messages that are strategically placed.

Unfortunately, no references are listed for readers who want to research this subject further, and there is no bibliography, leaving the impression that information contained within the book is purely the author's original observations. The only information about the author is a short personal account included in the introduction, which adds an enticing bit of mystique about her. As a mother and grandmother, the survivor of two miserable marriages, she had the gumption to start discussion groups while living and working in Italy, on topics such as life after death and psychic spiritual connections. In 1990, returning to England, Beattie started meditating and immediately connected with spirit guides. Battie lists the following reasons for meditation and channeling:

Battie proposes that perhaps readers have already channeled information without even realizing it. This occurs, for instance, when people wonder why they made a certain remark, or where a thought or idea might have come from [that is unusually helpful]. (p. 6). Battie suggests we might want to learn to channel in order to have access to all the help and information needed for spiritual growth and enlightenment. (p. 12). She relates, "You will draw to you guides who have the same field of interest as yourself and who will provide you with a greater understanding of the world in which you live." (Ibid.).

Chapters instruct readers on different ways to access channeling such as meditation and trance. The chapter on channeling for guidance and healing stresses the importance of being very clear on what we are seeking. (p. 36). In the chapter about meeting our guide, the author states that a spirit guide is on a higher vibration plane than a meditation guide. (p. 60). The author also answers some of the questions we might have about how to judge if what the guide says is true or not, what kinds of guides people might attract, and if the same guide always stays with the same person. (p. 71). Her hypothesis is that we generally meet our guide for the first time during meditation. Battie states, "In the deepest state (of trance) the channeller's soul leaves the body and is taken to other realms by his guides. He enjoys a reality not accessible in a normal conscious state." (p. 60). In addition, readers are instructed about what kinds of questions to ask of guides, and how to frame these questions.

Subsequent chapters focus on deepening our channeling practice and raising our vibration to the highest possible level. Battie then gives problem-solving advice on what we need to do if a connection cannot be made, if a changeover of guides occurs, when it is not appropriate to contact a guide, becoming too dependent upon a guide, and dealing with doubts. The author also provides us with an in-depth description on channeling angels, masters and sages. Other entities that can be channeled, Battie states, come from all levels of spirit form: animals, elementals, and fairies, beings of legends and myths, and great historical or religious figures. (p. 101).

Battie ends with a chapter on channeling for other people. With confidence built up by practice, the reader, who is learning the technique and is audibly channeling, can record words to be played later.

The book gives good advice in personal responsibility. If what is being channeled seems and feels good and true then individuals can heed it. The structure of the book is sound and helpful, and the relatively short length makes it palatable to even the casual reader.

Review by Liz Donnelly
Doctoral Student
Holos University Graduate Seminary
www.HolosUniversity.org

Book reviews by Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM, IJHC Editor, unless otherwise indicated.

Book Reviews

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