Books (October 2006)

Sally Rhine Feather and Michael Schmicker. The Gift: ESP- The Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People, New York: St. Martin’s Press 2005. 284 pp.
3 pp. Suggested reading    $23.95

Nicely complementing Radin’s work, Sally Feather and Michael Schmicker have put together an excellent introduction to ESP for the reader interested in stories of people in many walks of life whose lives have been enriched with intuitive, telepathic, clairvoyant and precognitive awarenesses. Parents, children, couples, death, disasters, wartime experiences and spirit communications are richly sampled.

This is no ordinary collection of such stories. Sally Rhine feather is the daughter of Luisa Rhine, who gave credibility to ESP through her meticulous gathering of stories similar to the ones in this book, and J. B. Rhine, who was among the first scientists to develop and implement careful laboratory methods for studying ESP. Feather and Schmicker continue in this tradition of bringing readers materials that convincingly demonstrate many of the ways in which ESP is active in people’s lives.

These authors also provide helpful discussions on the research that historically and recently confirms beyond reasonable doubt that ESP exists. In many of the examples, they put the reported experiences in the context of this research.

    (Read more in the latest issue of IJHC)

 
Phyllis Curott, The Love Spell:  An Erotic Memoir of Spiritual Awakening, New York, NY:  Gotham Books, 2005.  336 pp   $19.95    14 pp Refs.

Wiccan High Priestess Phyllis Curott shares her personal journey to find the ecstasy of true love and sexual union in a bewitching blend of eroticism, science, magic, Jungian psychology and Wiccan wisdom.  Working with the Wiccan spiritual tradition’s embrace of the Masculine and Feminine natures of Divinity as the God and Goddess, Curott seeks guidance from her ’daemon’ – a spiritual being of the opposite (masculine) gender who guides the female seeker on her journey towards her other ‘half.’  However, as Curott learns along the way, this path leads first to the wholeness of her own internal male and female aspects before she can continue on her way to find the true love(r), who literally haunts her dreams and calls through time and space to her heart.

Love is the way light feels.  I nourished the light within myself, and every day was filled with sunlight, every night with the moon; even when the clouds came and the rain fell, it fell to sustain the earth and my soul.  But there were times that I wept for my loneliness and his.  And one night I fell to my knees in a sorrow so great that it felt as if my chest were tearing open – the thought of living the rest of my life without him was unbearable.  I begged, I railed, I demanded, I cried, I prayed, and somehow, perhaps, I opened my heart and I made magic.

Review by Linda Eldridge
Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Product Development
Alternative Medicine Integration Group
ThD Candidate, Emphasis in Integrative Medicine, Holos
   University Graduate Seminary

    (Read more in the latest issue of IJHC)