Inprint - New Books of interest by Jeanne Spiro

The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things: Fourteen Natural Steps to Health and Happiness by Larry Dossey, M.D. (Harmony Books, $24.95, Hardcover.)

Every day modern medicine announces the arrival of yet another “wonder drug” or “miracle procedure” to a world increasingly wary of expensive high tech cures. Drugs, transplants, and surgery don’t work for ninety percent of our aches and pains and, while we are grateful for life-saving developments, we know that most come with risks that we ignore at our peril.

Long hailed as one of the founding fathers of mind-body medicine, Larry Dossey directs our attention to simple sources of healing that have been available for centuries, from the power of optimism and of tears to speed recovery, to the surprising usefulness of dirt and bugs in curing disease and infection, to the benefits of doing nothing.

Exploring the medical research that validates these simple remedies, Dossey encourages us to align ourselves with the wisdom of nature and allow true healing to take place. The extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things can transform our view of what health is all about, whether our concern is cancer or the common cold.

Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History and Legends, Unearthed and Explored edited by Frank Joseph. (New Page Books, $15.99, Paperback.)

Americans are taught in school that an Italian navigator discovered the New World. Independent investigators have since learned that Columbus owned charts of coastal New England drawn by Viking explorers hundreds of years before he was born. But medieval Scandinavians were not the first to set foot on our soil. They were preceded by eighth century Irish missionaries, shipwrecked Romans, Chinese imperialists, West African ex-patriots, and Egyptian cocaine dealers.

Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America is a collection of the most controversial articles published in Ancient American magazine during the last decade. They range from the discovery of Roman relics in Arizona and California’s Chinese treasure, to Viking runestones in Minnesota and Oklahoma, to Phoenicians in Chicago, and the lost Christian colony in prehistoric Michigan. These are documented discoveries that confound mainstream archeologists, and although some of them took place a century ago, they’ve been ignored or scorned, hidden or re-buried in storage areas, but have never been explained. Contributors include Zechariah Sitchin, Wayne May, Andrew Collins, David Hatcher Childress, and Laura Lee.

Pagan Spirituality: A Guide to Personal Transformation by Joyce and River Higginbotham. (Llewellyn, $14.95, Paperback.)

In a world filled with beginner books, deeper explanations of the Pagan faith are hard to find. Picking up where their first book, Paganism, left off, authors Joyce and River Higginbotham offer intermediate level instruction with Pagan Spirituality.

Respected members of their communities, the Higginbothams describe how to continue spiritual evolution through magick, communing, energy work, divination, and conscious creation. Learn how to use journaling, thought development, visualization, and goal-setting to develop magickal techniques and to further cultivate spiritual growth. This book serves to expand your spiritual knowledge base by providing a balanced approach of well-established therapies, extensive personal experience, and question-and-answer sessions that directly involve you in your spiritual journey.

Witnesses to the Unsolved: Prominent Psychic Detectives and Mediums Explore Our Most Haunting Mysteries by Edward Olshaker. (Remiel Press. $22.95, Hardcover)

Has a team of prominent psychic detectives and mediums solved the mystery surrounding the death of rock idol Kurt Cobain? Have they uncovered the truth behind the deaths of Vincent Foster, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ron Brown? The answers are in Witnesses to the Unsolved.

Although many view psychic phenomena with suspicion, the truth is that more than one third of major police departments across the United States use psychic detectives to help solve their most difficult cases. In this same open-minded investigative spirit, Edward Olshaker turned to some of the world’s most accomplished psychic detectives and mediums in a quest for the missing pieces to some of our most puzzling mysteries.

They include Nancy Myer, Robert Cracknell, Bertie Catchings, Betty Muench, Janet Cyford and Philip Solomon. They offer inspiring evidence that we are more than mere flesh and blood and there is more to know, and more ways of knowing, than most of us can imagine.

Cool Mind Warm Heart: Adventures with Life’s Biggest Secret by Steve Roberts. (St. Lynn’s Press, $15.95, Paperback)

Everything is a gift. Most of us have no trouble accepting the gifts life showers on us if they’re things like birdsong, a bountiful holiday table, or a perfect snowflake. Other gifts, though, tend to challenge our role as gracious recipient: a diagnosis of cancer, a visit from the IRS, a mean-spirited boss who humiliates us in meetings. If you’re spiritually inclined at all, you know in theory that with adversity comes growth ... but how can you reach a place where you really live that belief?

Steve Roberts is a self-described strategist and mentor for leaders. He specializes in helping people gain clarity on what is essential, especially in painful times. He says that pain is not punishment, but the universe urging us to make a different choice; that we are bigger than it, that we are divine, and that we can make room for everything. He suggests that the universe only appears frightening. In reality, it is playful, loving and deep. In this spirit Roberts provides unusual twists on experiences we thought we knew. He makes us laugh and cry, and sends us searching for the gifts in our own lives.

The Secret Gateway: Modern Theosophy and the Ancient Wisdom Tradition by Edward Abdill. (Quest Books, $15.95, Paperback.)

We all wonder why. Why is there so much sorrow and apparent injustice in the world? Why can we not find permanent happiness? Scientists have discovered much about the objective world. We know a great deal about matter and energy, but we know little about the subjective side of our nature. There is a timeless tradition that illuminates some of the laws of the subjective nature and also addresses the question of why. It is found in human cultures all over the world from the earliest recorded history to the present. It has been called by various names such as the ancient wisdom and the perennial philosophy.

In the late nineteenth century, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky formulated a modern statement of the ancient wisdom tradition. She called it Theosophy, emphasizing that she taught nothing new, only gathered together much of the wisdom of the past and presented it in modern language.

The Secret Gateway has been written to show that the fundamental principles of Theosophy can be found throughout nature. Since we are part of nature, those principles also affect us. Theosophy has not solved all the mysteries of life; it has merely lifted a corner of the veil. This book is an invitation to probe more profoundly into your own inner self, to discover that deep within your own consciousness you are one with the Eternal, to find the secret gateway that opens onto a more meaningful and rewarding life.

The Promise of Energy Psychology: Revolutionary Tools for Dramatic Personal Change by David Feinstein, Donna Eden, and Gary Craig. (Tarcher/Penguin, $15.95, Paperback.)

Since the dawn of civilization, people have suffered from anxiety, depression, and a host of other conditions, phobias, and fears that rob them of the life they’d like to live. Even with today’s arsenal of drugs, psychotherapy, and self-help programs, many are unable to vanquish their demons. Some choose to simply suffer in silence to avoid unwanted drug side effects and the expense or stigma associated with treatment.

The unique approach presented in this book shows how you can work with your body’s energies to shift your neurology and actually alter the patterns in your brain that maintain unwanted habits, maladaptive emotional responses, and self-limiting ways of thinking. With this strategy, stubborn phobias often fade in minutes; the lifelong effects of an early trauma can be reduced or completely eliminated; uncontrollable anger can rapidly become manageable; even physical problems may respond positively where other treatments have failed.

The field of energy psychology is making a profound contribution in our ability to manage our emotions and our potentials. The Promise of Energy Psychology puts the power to effect change directly into your hands and gives you control over your fears, pain, and destructive behavior.