Books (November 2007)

LaVonne Harper Stiffler.  Synchronicity & Reunion:  The Genetic Connection of Adoptees & Birth Parents, Conroe.  TX:  LaVonne Harper Stiffler Matek Communications 1982, p. 4.

LaVonne Harper Stiffler has written one of the best books on synchronicity that I have ever seen. Synchronicities are coincidences that are often so improbable as to make them deeply meaningful to the participants in these highly unlikely interlinkings of experiences.

This book details numerous amazing reports – from people who were adopted early in life and from their birth parents – relating how they were helped through highly unusual synchronicities to locate each other.

Stiffler’s narration is supplemented by the most extensive referencesI have ever seen on synchronicity. In addition to the literature on synchronicities, she brings many relevant facts, insights and references to help explore in greater depth the meaningfulness of the birth bond and its influence on the lives of all of the family members who are related through that bond…

There are somewhere between five and eight million adoptees in the US. In 1984, a survey revealed that about half a million of these people were looking for or had located their birth families. This search is made extremely difficult by laws that lock all adoption records in all but three of the fifty states. The search from either side of the birth bond requires extreme persistence. In many of the instances documented, there were intuitive or psychic awarenesses that facilitated the ultimate reconnections. In addition, there were numerous instances of apparent chance meetings with people or other unlikely events that facilitated the reunions.

A female adoptee was… surprised to learn that both she and her mother were living less than a two-hour drive apart, having moved to Arizona from Hawaii and New England before finding each other.  “Why were we both in Arizona?  Neither of us especially enjoyed the climate.  We both feel that in the span of Hawaii to New England, Arizona must be a mid-point.  Very strange!” (p.  9).

Various chapters focus on a variety of synchronistic links, such as names that were common to the birth family and the adopting family (where the two families had no contact whatsoever); genetic links of twins that seemed to produce even more highly unusual synchronicities; and links of timing in participants’ lives.

  (See more in IJHC, September 2007)

Christina Pratt, An Encyclopedia of Shamanism, New York: Rosen Publishing 2007.  Volume 1, 304 pp; Volume 2, 368 pp   8 1/2 x 11  HB $325  PB $150

Christina Pratt, director of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing in Portland, OR, brings us an outstanding reference on Shamanism. An introductory section orients the reader to various aspects of shamanism, distinguishing shamanism from healing and psychic practices. Pratt writes clearly and succinctly, and has obviously invested enormous efforts in producing this very detailed information.

(See more in IJHC, September 2007)

GENETIC ENGINEERING AND THE MAN-MADE DESTRUCTION OF THE EVOLUTIONARY WISDOM OF THE AGES

Jeffrey M. Smith. Seeds of Deception:  Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating, Fairfield IO: Yes! Books 2003.

Denise Caruso. Intervention:  Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet, San Francisco:  The Hybrid Vigor Press 2006.

Jeffrey M. Smith. Genetic Roulette:  The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Fairfield IO: Yes! Books 2007.

When the structure of DNA was discovered and the existence of genes established, a group of adult children pounced on this discovery as a whole new game of Leggo.  Genes code for proteins, and it was assumed that one gene = one protein = one trait or result, and so if you switched genes early enough in the development of an embryo, you'd get a new kind of organism with different traits.  Better traits, of course, as human intellect so clearly can improve over the development of organisms that simply evolved through the natural order.

Immediately, the new technology was brought to bear on the food industry. The advantage of the food industry as a testing ground for genetic engineering of foods is that its products are consumed by all human beings, that supplies need to be replenished regularly, and that once a product is consumed one would have great difficulty proving what happened as a result of its ingestion.  Under the guise of solving world hunger, the
biotechnology industry set out to change the genes of the food supply. Interestingly, the first thing they did was not to make sure certain foods grew more abundantly to help feed people;  no, the first thing was the
development of a strain of soybeans that would not die when sprayed with Monsanto's herbicide "Roundup."  This strain of soybeans is called "Roundup Ready," and it means it could be sprayed morning, noon and night with herbicides and it wouldn't die, while all plants around the soybeans (weeds, the lot) would wither and disappear.

In Europe, the new technology did not go over so well.  Farmers and consumers rebelled;  there were riots and the genetically modified (GMO) plants were ripped out of the ground.  In the US, which once had been called "A Nation of Sheep," (Lederer, 1962) nothing much happened except for the few who complained and were labeled as health nuts and ignored by the media. Fortunately, the official Organic Standards preclude the use of GMO foods in products labeled "organic," so for those of us who don't want them, there is still a way to find GMO-free foods.  Otherwise, one is not allowed to say anything is "GMO-free" because the position of the authorities is that GMO foods are substantially equivalent to non-GMO, which is patently untrue.

There are lots of politics, chicanery, money-motives, and falsehoods in the biotech industry.  To really get a good view of its machinations, I recommend Jeffrey M. Smith's first book, Seeds of Deception.  This book is an extensively researched and exhaustive review of the way the public has been misled by the government, the biotech corporations, (among which Monsanto is the undisputed commander general), and the various regulatory agencies that are entrusted with keeping the food supply safe.  Read it and
weep.
(See more in IJHC September 2007)

Book Review by Annemarie Colbin, PhD, a well known lecturer and consultant, founder of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City (www.naturalgourmetschool.com), and author of "Food and Healing"
(Ballantine Books, 1996).  Website: www.foodandhealing.com  Video blog:
www.holisticanarchy.com