Larry Dossey, one of our Living Spiritual Teachers, is a leader in bringing scientific understanding to spirituality and rigorous proof to alternative medicine. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Healing Words, the first serious look at how prayer affects healing. He has appeared several times on Oprah and is an international advocate for the role of the mind in health and the role of spirituality in health care.
In the introduction to this intriguing book, Dossey defines a premonition as "a glimpse of the future, a feeling or sense that something is about to happen. Premonitions are not explainable by inference from prior information or past experience. They come in many flavors. They may warn us of something unpleasant, such as imminent danger or a health crisis, or announce something agreeable, such as what the winning lottery numbers are, or where to find a parking spot. Premonitions may be vague, or vivid and dramatic, as in a dream that contains complex characters and plotlines. They may occur when we are awake or asleep. We may be fully conscious of them, or they may be buried in our unconscious mind so deeply they prompt us to act without knowing why."
The author begins with "Cases" which demonstrate the variety of premonitions people have experienced including warnings of illness, infant death (SIDS), disasters, avoiding planes and trains, September 11, and making money. Here Dossey does a good job discerning the "personality" of premonitions.
The next section, "Evidence," tallies up the findings of recent scientific studies on premonitions. Dossey probes even further in a chapter titled: "Premonitions: Why, What, How?" in which he looks at their symbolic nature, the repression effect, evolution and instinct, and entropy and emotion. Dossey hits high stride near the end of the book with his assessments of the kinds of people who are premonition prone and reasons why we should pay attention to premonitions — for example, if they are intrusive and insistent, as if clamoring for attention, and when they seem intensely real.
The author quotes poet and essayist Henry Van Dyke: "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity." Dossey puts the puzzle of premonitions together with his closing comments on time, consciousness, the unknown, mystery, and surprise. As always, he is a meaning-maker par excellence!
