Inprint - New Books of interest by Jeanne Spiro

The Living Universe: Fundamental Discovery That Transforms Science and Medicine by Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D. and Linda G. Russek, Ph.D. (Hampton Roads, $16.95, Paperback.)

How can we know if our souls survive our body’s death? Can science show that our deceased loved ones are alive in spirit? Is it possible that the universe and everything in it is eternal, alive, and evolving? Is there scientific proof that energy and information exist after physical death, and therefore that consciousness exists and evolves after death? Can science answer the ultimate question—whether there is a Grand Organizing Designer (G.O.D.), a universal consciousness which is also evolving? These ideas and more are discussed in The Living Universe.

Drs. Gary Schwartz and Linda Russek address humankind’s most important questions with clarity and rigorous analysis using scientific tools to demonstrate that everything in the universe is living, learning, and remembering. They document startling cases of organ transplant patients who have experienced cellular memories of their donors. They describe research involving gifted mediums which suggests that our consciousness does indeed survive physical death. The authors’ Universal Living Memory theory explains these and other phenomena such as how chemical memory can occur in water as in homeopathy, how living information-energy systems memory can occur during out-of-body or near-death experiences, and how universal living memory can occur everywhere as dynamic light, even in the vacuum of space.

Schwartz and Russek explode the popular notion that science and spirituality are fated to be at odds. Their profound and controversial conclusions will continue to inspire new research into realms once thought beyond the domain of science.

Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman. (Healing Free Press, $26.00, Hardcover.)

Why do you believe the things you believe? Do you remember events differently from how they really happened? Where do your superstitions come from? How do morals evolve? Why are some people religious and others nonreligious? Everyone has thoughts and questions like these, and now Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman expose how our complex views emerge from neural activities of the brain. Bridging science, psychology, and religion, they demonstrate how the brain perceives reality and transforms it into an extraordinary range of personal, ethical, and creative premises that we use to build meaning, value, spirituality, and truth into our lives. When you come to understand this remarkable process, it will change forever the way you look at the world and yourself.

Supported by groundbreaking research, including brain scans of people as they pray, meditate, and even speak in tongues, Newberg and Walman propose a new model for how deep convictions emerge and influence our lives. You will even glimpse how the mind of an atheist works when contemplating God. Using personal stories, moral paradoxes, and optical illusions, the authors demonstrate how our brains construct our fondest assumptions about reality, offering recommendations for exercising your most important “muscle” in order to develop a more life-affirming, flexible range of attitudes. The authors discuss how to recognize when your beliefs are altered by others, to guard against mental traps and prejudicial thinking, distinguish between destructive and constructive beliefs, and cultivate spiritual and ethical ideals.

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam by Quang Van Nguyen and Marjorie Pivar. (St.Martin’s Press, $19.95, Paperback.)

Set during the French and American wars in Vietnam, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is the true story of an orphan, Quang Van Nguyen, adopted by a sixty-four year old monk, Thau, who carries great responsibility for his people as a barefoot doctor. Thau manages against all odds to raise his son to follow in his footsteps and in doing so saves him, as well as a part of Vietnam’s esoteric knowledge.

Thau is wanted by the French regime and occasionally must flee into the jungle, where he is perfectly at home living among the animals. Thau is not an average monk; he practices an ancient form of Chinese medicine and uses magic to protect animals and help people. As wise and resourceful as he is, he meets his match in his mischievous son. Quang is more interested in learning Cambodian sorcery and martial arts than in developing his skills and wisdom according to his father’s plan.

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is an odyssey of a single-father folk hero and his foundling son in a land ravaged by the atrocities of war. It is a classic story, complete with humor, tragedy, and insight, from a country where ghosts and magic are real.

This Time I Dance: Creating the Work You Love by Tama J. Kieves. (Jeremy P. Tarcher, $14.95, Paperback.)

Tama Kieves thought a high-paying, high-pressure corporate job was the answer. She would be secure, and the world would be less scary. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and was on the partnership track at a good firm. She had always wanted to write, but figured she could do it in her spare time.

It didn’t work for her. She wasn’t happy, she wasn’t fulfilled, and she didn’t feel safe. Yet she was afraid that doing what she loved wouldn’t pay the bills. She shared these thoughts with a friend of hers, and his response was the key that unlocked all doors: “If you’re this successful doing work you don’t love, what could you do with work you do love?”

So began the journey Keives chronicles in This Time I Dance. With warmth, honesty, and humor, she explores the fears and doubts that often paralyze us and prevent us from making choices that can enlarge our life, and shares her story of how she broke free into her own destiny. With her personal and practical stories of overcoming insecurities, you will discover the unparalleled power of your own true work in this world. She shows us how to live our lives from love instead of fear.

The Grief Club: The Secret to Getting Through All Kinds of Change by Melody Beattie. (Hazelden, $14.95, Paperback.)

After Melody Beattie’s twelve year old son died, she found herself cast into a new club—a circle of people who had somehow survived the heartrending loss of a child. But this wasn’t the only club that she had found herself an unwilling part of over the years. She also became a member of the “I’m Getting Older Club” and the “My Kids have Left and I’m Dealing With an Empty Nest Club.”

As she explains in The Grief Club, we find ourselves joining clubs whether we want to or not. The phone rings and we join the “Why Do I Have Cancer Club.” There’s the “I’m a Financially Broken Man Club,” the “Someone I Love Has Alzheimer’s Disease Club.” We wait for life to be like it was, then one day we get it. Life as we know it is gone. It’s never going to be the same again. Welcome to the Grief Club.

In The Grief Club—part memoir, part self-help book—you will come to know about Melody Beattie’s experience with death, divorce, and drug addiction. You will meet many others who have also endured tragedy and heartbreak. You will see parts of yourself and your life reflected in its stories. That’s how the club works. The secret for getting through life’s losses lies in joining the club and sharing your story with people who listen, care, and understand. And in turn, you will be there for others. Rather than focusing on the stages of pain experienced during loss, Beattie urges us to look at loss as a sacred time that counts, not a passage of waiting to return to normal.

Cluny: In Search of God’s Lost Empire by Edwin Mullins. (BlueBridge, $24.95, Paperback.)

A thousand years ago, the French abbey of Cluny was the hub of one of the mightiest empires of the Middle Ages, and the spiritual heart of Europe. Cluny was a Benedictine monastery in Burgundy. Its church was the largest and greatest ever built, until St. Peter’s in Rome was rebuilt in the 16th century with a few additional feet to intentionally demote it. Nearly 1,500 monastic houses were subject to Cluny’s authority, and its abbots were confidants to countless emperors, popes, and kings.

Cluny tells the story of the abbey from its humble beginnings in the early Middle Ages, through its centuries of immense wealth and sacred glory, to its long decline – until it was destroyed during the French Revolution. It examines its little-known role in the reconquest of Spain from the Moors, its dubious part in organizing the First Crusade, the bitter rivalry with Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians, and its delicate involvement in the tragic love story of Heloise and Abelard.

A monastery like no other, much of Cluny’s legacy lays in the great cultural innovations that the abbey sponsored, from the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela to some of the most magnificent churches in all of France and England, including Autun, Vézelay, Chartres, and Canterbury.

Trager for Self Healing: A Practical Guide for Living in the Present Moment by Audrey Mairi. (H J Kramer, $14.95, Paperback.)

The present moment is where we find our empowerment, our peace, our bliss. It is where it’s all happening, where we long to be. Unfortunately old habits keep us stuck in the dramas of our past history and future expectations and prevent us from experiencing all the present moment has to offer. The Trager Approach is a holistic method of body/mind integration that creates greater present moment awareness. It uses touch and physical movement to invite the body/mind to experience feelings of lightness, joy, good health, and enduring peace.

In Trager for Self-Healing, Audrey Mairi shares her own journey of healing via the Trager Approach and explains how anyone can use it to put themselves quickly and effortlessly in the present moment. She introduces and explains how to use practical techniques call Menastics, or mental gymnastics, to let go of mental, physical, and emotional holding patterns so we can fully bring ourselves into the present moment. These exercises take very little time and are performed alongside everything else we do.

Designed for all ages and fitness levels, Menastics spurs consciousness of the now and imprints the body with how that feels. Because the present moment is a feeling state, and not an intellectual concept, this is a crucial part of the process. By introducing Menastics into our everyday routines, we will experience a stronger connection to the life force, life decisions will become clearer, the mind will become more creative, and the body will become more relaxed and healthy.