I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads in exchange for a fair review.
Since it is given exercising, eating well, positive thinking, meditating, practicing compassion and loving kindness toward other living beings are important for staying healthy and this book is written by two psychotherapists, I was expecting a book about these in addition to chapters about the lessons chronic illnesses can teach us, just like anything else that happens in life, but was terribly disappointed by the content and the tone of this book. Here is how the book starts: “This book is not ‘scientific, in that it lacks the caution necessarily involved in any ‘scientific presentation’…. People whose goal is enlightenment have no time for rationalistic science: what they need is knowledge.” (“Take my word for it because I say so.”)
The book really has nothing to do with psychology, and it is more of a philosophy book than a book about healing since its content seems to be taken from all the books the authors read in their lifetimes. All this information is thrown together without any integration in a consistent manner, but it is being quoted to impress the reader and to gain some kind of legitimacy. (“…fourteenth card of the Tarot’s Major Arcana. He writes: ‘the name of the angel is Time, said the voice. Upon its forehead is the circle that is the sign of eternity and the sign of life.”) It also has a very rigid, self-righteous, and condescending tone, claiming every illness is a result of “consciousness” whatever that means. (“Every positive statement is a product of our divided world and is for that reason not applicable to the Oneness. From the viewpoint of our polar consciousness the Oneness therefore appears as No-thing.”…. “Asthmatics have a strong domineering….steak that reappears as the asthmatic’s typical ‘over-inflation’. This over-inflation reveals quite graphically the arrogance and the lust for power….”)
This is a very impressive book for a freshman or even for someone in graduate school before developing critical thinking as a result of life experiences and reading hundreds if not thousands of books in a lifetime. The language of the book is very wordy and syrupy, reminding me of some academic circles in the Old World, “harder to understand, the better the writing.” (“Nevertheless, today’s reigning view is that causality exists on its own account-indeed, is even demonstrable experientially-and it is this particular misconception that we are most anxious to combat….This dogged attachment to interpreting things causally has in fact restricted our whole view of the world and our capacity for understanding it to an extent that is truly staggering.”)
I personally don’t know anybody who has bipolar illness, schizophrenia, diabetes, or MS because of his own doing. It is given you may run into someone who has secondary gains from complaining of physical ailments as an attention getter, and also some of the illnesses may have to do with life style choices sometimes, but these are exceptions rather than the rule. Having said that, I want to add that I am grateful to the independent publishing companies like this one and I plan on reading some of the impressive books on their catalogs. Also my compliments to the translator who did an amazing job.