by
June Rouse

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THE ART OF CALM: Relaxation Through the Five Senses is a lovely collection by Brian Luke Seaward (author of Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water) of the many things to do that'll calm you down and make you happy. In-the-moment kinds of things like really listening to a train passing by, articulating a prayer of gratitude, taking in the aroma of a cup of hot chocolate as you sip, kicking off your shoes and exploring the world with bare feet, blowing bubbles! The Art of Calm isn't just a list, it's a paragraph or three regarding what we may have forgotten all about in our press to accomplish as much as possible.

This pretty little book is divided into sections covering the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and an additional section on what Seaward calls the divine sense. Ideas here aren't on the $ grid, which just goes to remind you what life is really about.

Seaward proposes, "The art of calm invites us to fully live in the present moment, without judgment or analysis…." The passages and insights in his book can remind you regularly to seek balance in your life and live life to the fullest. I think you'll enjoy The Art of Calm as much as that deserving person you'd like to give a meaningful little present to. (230 pages, Health Communications, Inc., $9.95.)

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Dr. Maurie Pressman, a front-line veteran of the healing community, offers us the adventure of a lifetime: the opportunity to discover our own divinity -- and to conduct life from that perspective.

With endorsements by eminent researcher in the field of human consciousness Stanley Krippner, Gladys McGarey (The Physician Within You) and Lucinda Vardey (A Book of Prayers by Women and God in All Worlds), holistic psychiatrist Dr. Maurie Pressman's new book, ENTER THE SUPERMIND, flies into bookstores and the shopping bags of readers looking for ways to amplify their connection with the infinite. In this handbook for layperson and professional alike, he combines the enthusiasm of an investigative reporter with true spiritual acumen. Psychotherapist, lecturer and author, Dr. Pressman takes us with him in his explorations into the power of consciousness.

Enter the SuperMind: The Search for the Soul in Psychotherapy is a story of his own journey of discovery as well as riveting experiences of some of his patients. At the end of each chapter, Pressman includes guidelines and exercises that lead readers onward and inward on their own quest to discover more about their own power… and bring it into bloom.

Just what does Pressman mean by Supermind? Readers of Pressman's popular column, Bridging Personality and Spirit, know that what he refers to is that part of consciousness that imparts messages from our inmost Source.

Maurie Pressman has literally been witness to the flowering of psychiatry. We follow his experiences from an early-in-the-century medical curriculum half-day lecture about the "mad" to the fascination that ensued when Freud's breakthrough work about the unconscious began to appear in English, to millennia-old teachings of the East which take into account "the opening of the gates to our essential power." Here he discusses those whose work helped to form his own understandings of personality -- and foreshadowed Aquarian age holism: meetings with Muktananda and other Masters (and definers of Mastership such as Blavatsky) and experiential practices of Grof and others who cultivated concepts of transpersonal psychology. Together, they raised the practice of service to the troubled to a new plane. The book is written from the viewpoint of a traditional psychotherapist who has become a spiritual one.

Its message is that "soul is easy to seek. It is ever present….surrounded by layers of repression that we are taught as children to use to hide our selves from our inner Selves. These coverings are further increased by society's admonitions to keep ourselves separate, each from the other, and to practice power rather than love -- to seek personal advantage rather than sharing." A message to the point, and powerful, as Pressman offers us as tools powerful anecdotes and his own experiences of the spiritual underpinnings of our lives.

At the end of each chapter, the author has included guidelines and exercises that lead the reader onward and inward in his or her personal quest for understanding.

If discovering the workings of consciousness is part of your excitement in living, I think you'll find that Enter the SuperMind is just a super book. Thanks, Dr. Maurie. (163 pages, CeShore, $17.95.)

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