Book Review: Classical Medical Astrology

Warning: Don't try anything in this book at home. The medical establishment (or more accurately, its government representatives) may come to your house and confiscate your astrology books and throw you in jail. If this happens, it's not my fault. Ha, ha, only serious.

Now that the disclaimer's out of the way, I've posted a bit on my other blog about the health care industry in America, it's problems, and the purported attempts to fix it. I say "purported" because I haven't seen anything in the recent health care reform debate to indicate that the root of the problem is even known. Yes, there is waste, and it's also true that prescription drugs and hospital visits are appallingly expensive. But here's the thing: the prescription drugs and hospital visits would be worth every penny if they worked. By "worked," I mean that if you take a prescription or visit the hospital, the problem that induced you to seek help is gone, permanently, at some point in the near future. If you have to keep taking the drugs, the treatment didn't work; the problem is still there, it's just being masked by the drugs. If you have to go back to the hospital because your cancer came back somewhere else, the treatment didn't work.

Now, hospital visits and prescriptions work well for things like a broken arm, or strep throat. For other conditions like high blood pressure and acid reflux, treatment (not a cure) is the best we can hope for. But what if there are alternative methods that would work better and cost less? Should we really refuse to consider them just because they don't conform to our scientific model?

The alternative option I want to talk about today is outlined in Classical Medical Astrology: Healing with the Elements by Oscar Hofman. This book is not for beginners, but astrologers will find the basic concepts of medical astrology here and pointers to other sources. Non-astrologers may want to read the book anyway for a new perspective on what is possible using this method, and what was done in the past. The book starts with some background history, then goes on to explain the classical medical model, including the four humors, which correspond to the four classical elements. After describing how astrology fits in to this model, the book has some case studies that serve to illustrate the different concepts. There is also information about using herbs and crystals to help in treatment.

Now, none of this will ever be FDA-approved. Medical astrology just doesn't fit the model. Double-blind testing doesn't work if different people respond differently to treatments, which for that reason have to be customized. But please remember that the current scientific medical model got us where we are today. For better results, we may have to expand the model.

Book Review: The Spontaneous Healing of Belief

Every so often on the path it becomes useful to read a book that expands your beliefs about what is possible. We need something that confirms that we're on the right path, and that there's some cool stuff along the way. The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits by Gregg Braden is that kind of book.

The first point made by the book, and this is something I've believed for years, is that the advances made by science in quantum physics and string theory haven't been assimilated into the rest of science or our beliefs about science. While quantum physics has discovered an underlying unity in the universe, the rest of science is still stuck in the Newtonian paradigm of matter as little bowling balls called atoms, and that everything is either those bowling balls or some type of energy. The word "Newtonian" always gives me an ironic feeling when I read it because Newton was an alchemist and astrologer and I'm not sure what he would have thought of the paradigm that bears his name.

There are also some nice examples in the book of events that are impossible according to mainstream science. My personal favorite is a hand print embedded in a stone cave wall in Tibet. There's also a story about prehistoric climate-controlled condominiums in New Mexico. You've probably heard of stories of people lifting cars in urgent situations. This is normally explained by adrenaline, but that explanation seems rather hollow when you think about a non-athlete lifting over 20 times their body weight.

A key concept of the book is the fractal nature of the universe. I don't know if Mr. Braden is familiar with the Correspondence Principle ("As above, so below"), but it's definitely fractal. The key characteristic of fractals is that they look the same on a large scale as they do on a small scale, and that's the essence of the Correspondence Principle.

Another key concept is that the underlying unity of the universe responds to belief and emotion on our part. There's a great part at then end of the book about prayer as a means of accomplishing that, including a unique interpretation of the Lord's Prayer.

I recommend this book to all who are on the path, but especially beginners and fundamentalist materialists.

What If? The Movie - Clip 4

Here's the 4th clip I received about the What If? movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajLPNJ6kpD8

This clip is about a group of people living in the Himalayas who reportedly are able to have children past age 70.

The movie should prove to be very interesting.

What If? The Movie - Clip 2

Here's another clip from What If? The Movie:

Joe Dispenza describing how the mind can produce real physical effect on the body

For more by Dr. Dispenza, check out his book Evolve Your Brain.

Enjoy.

Book Review: The Body Electric

If salamanders, flatworms and stone crabs can regenerate body parts that are cut off, why can't we? A possible answer is given in The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life by Robert O. Becker, M.D. and Gary Selden. The book explores the role of electricity in the healing process, along with certain fundamentalist materialist beliefs that turn out not to be true.

For example, cell dedifferentiation is considered not to be possible in more complex animals such as ourselves. A brief explanation will be necessary for those of us who are not biologists. As embryos develop in the womb, they start off as clumps of identical cells. At some point in the process, some of the cells become bone cells, some muscle, nerves, organs, etc. This process is considered to be irreversible in mammals. Dedifferentiation is the temporary reversal of this process so that cells can be repurposed. The experiments described in this book offer strong evidence that dedifferentiation not only possible, but vital in healing bone fractures.

The authors discovered while researching regeneration in salamanders a consistent pattern of electrical charges during the healing process. By altering the electrical charges, the authors were able to slow down, stop, or even accelerate regeneration. They were even able to induce bone re-growth in rats and cartilage re-growth in rabbits. Under certain circumstances, the regeneration process in salamanders eliminated cancer as a side effect. There's also an interesting bit about piezoelectricity in bones.

This book is an important reminder that the belief that we have all the answers actually prevents us from getting all the answers. More importantly, it will give you new ideas about what we are capable of doing.

Book Review: Human Devolution

Science is supposed to work on the basis of developing a provisional theory which is modified or re-done as further information becomes available. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. Initial hypotheses often become set in stone, and any evidence to the contrary is swept under the rug until it starts to spill out from under the edges. Need examples? Human Devolution by Michael A. Cremo has them. The book is devoted to a single important proposition: that the fundamentalist materialist view of us, the world, and how we got here is incomplete at best.

The first part of the book is an overview of evidence given in Forbidden Archeology that the timeline of man's development given by traditional evolutionists doesn't match the time periods given by archeology. Evidence of man, including fossils, has been found in deposits thought to predate humans, by millions of years in some instances. The second part of the book provides evidence against the materialist view of man as being merely "a bag of chemicals." As you might expect, this section gives plenty of examples of documented paranormal phenomena, including levitation and telekinesis. Myths from various cultures about the origins of man are also covered.

This book is a helpful, if long, antidote against fundamentalist materialism.

Book Review: Between Heaven and Earth

There is a growing dissatisfaction toward Western medicine, especially here in America, where it seems that every year it gets more expensive, but the results don't reflect the price. My biggest complaint is that we don't have cures for the most common ailments; we just have treatments, mostly in the form of prescription medicines that have to be taken indefinitely. A second and possibly related complaint is that we treat the placebo effect, which reflects the power of the mind, as something to be controlled for instead of something we might be able to use to our advantage.

If you are interested in alternative medicine and would like to learn about some of the concepts and options, Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine is a good place to start. The book covers acupuncture, herbal medicine, and nutrition. The book offers the model of the body as a garden and the doctor as a gardener as a contrast to the conventional model of the body as a machine and the doctor as a mechanic. A healthy garden has growing plants and fragrant flowers; a machine works as intended or it's broken. A gardener tends a garden and removes weeds; a mechanic does preventive maintenance and replaces broken or worn-out parts. You get the idea.

A healthy garden includes more than the plants themselves; the soil, water, and weather conditions also have an impact. The gardens that we are include not just our bodies, but our minds, emotions and personalities. Thus the book gives five elements (fire, water, earth, wood and metal), which have more in common with the four elements of alchemy (fire, water, air and earth) than with the elements of the periodic table. The five elements correspond to basic personality patterns and to five of what the book calls "organ networks." The idea is that there should be balance between the elements.

You won't be able to perform acupuncture or prescribe herbs after reading this book, but you will have a solid grounding in the concepts behind traditional Chinese medicine. I recommend this book for those interested in the subject.