Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Reinventing Medicine
Beyond Mind-Body to a New Era of Healing
Larry Dossey
HarperSanFrancisco 10/99 Hardcover $24.00
ISBN: 0-06-251622-1

In this visionary work bolstered by a solid foundation of scientific evidence, Dr. Larry Dossey takes us beyond the limitations of mechanical medicine (Era I) and mind/body medicine (Era II) to the unbounded medicine of Era III, where the nonlocal mind works wonders outside the confines of normal space and linear time. Here at last is a watershed work that publishes the banns and then joyfully celebrates the wedding of science and spirituality. The art of healing on these pages is an amalgam of love, empathy, compassion, generosity, sharing, and mystery.

The author of the 1993 New York Times bestseller Healing Words begins with his own experiences of nonlocality and then presents the most up-to-date clinical and laboratory research on the capacity of human consciousness to function outside the individual brain and body. Scientists are discovering what mystics, visionaries, and saints have known for centuries — the unity and interdependence of all human beings, animals, and inanimate things.

Dossey impressively maps the psycho-spiritual dimensions of Era III medicine where intercessory prayer, intuition, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, visions, prophetic dreams, and the sharing of physical symptoms between distant individuals will be taken seriously. What's more, these experiences will be utilized as part of a healing process facilitated by patients, physicians, and healthcare workers. Such tools will greatly enhance the diagnoses and treatment protocols already at work in Era I and Era II medicine.

Dossey's ambitious and imaginative reinvention of medicine concludes with his discussion of "eternity medicine" where he deals with near-death experiences, visitations from the dead, and reincarnation. The author realizes that technological medicine is not enough in this era when millions of people are embracing a holistic and spiritual understanding of life.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat