Healing Beyond the Body: Medicine and the Infinite Reach of the Mind - Hardcover

Dossey, Larry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1570628602 ISBN 13: 9781570628603

Publisher: Shambhala, 2001

Synopsis

Here is a new collection of writings on health and healing from a leader in the field of alternative medicine. Larry Dossey has transformed both the practice and teaching of modern medicine by demanding that they encompass two subjects that many in the scientific establishment would rather ignore. The first is meaning, a concept many scientists flatly declare to be beyond the realm of science. The second is nonlocality, a term indicating the infinite reach of human consciousness, or, more prosaically, the ability of one being to affect another—through prayer, for example—at a distance and through no known medium. A third concept connects and embodies both meaning and nonlocality: mind. It's a subject that Dossey quickly persuades us we know far too little about. Dossey is one of the most influential spokespersons for the role of consciousness and spirituality in modern medicine, lecturing to hospitals, medical schools, and lay groups around the world. The wide-ranging essays gathered in Healing beyond the Body exemplify consciousness without boundaries. Time and again, Dossey explores research that demands that we expand our view of healing to include elements well outside the standard medical modalities. He examines alternatives such as prayer, love, laughter, creativity, dreams, hypnosis, and more. Some of the essays are lighthearted and whimsical, such as those dealing with the impact of humor or fishing on health. Others are more challenging—for example, the essay on the "evil eye" and his Maggie Award winning "War: A Vietnam Memoir." Some are visionary, such as those dealing with the infinite reach of the mind, and some are genuinely inspirational, such as the concluding essay, "Immortality." Each essay in its own way will challenge and inspire readers to examine themselves and their health in new and different lights.

About this title

About the Author:

Larry Dossey, M.D., is a physician of internal medicine. He was a battalion surgeon in Vietnam, chief of staff at Medical City Dallas Hospital, and a member of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Task Force on Health Care Reform. He has lectured all over the world, including at the Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and numerous other major universities and medical schools. His eight other books include Space, Time, and Medicine; Healing Words; and Prayer Is Good Medicine.

From Booklist:

These 14 essays originally appeared in the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, which nonspecialist readers aren't likely to see. Their reappearance here promises them the wider audience that Dossey's fame as the doctor who believes in the efficacy of prayer has attracted. Dossey sees meaning as vitally important in the practice of both orthodox and alternative medicine. If a physician doesn't understand the meaning a patient is trying to convey, nor a patient what a physician's words and actions mean, the effectiveness of their relationship will be minimal; indeed, that relationship may become misleading. Healing often lies beyond the body, Dossey holds, and he illustrates the manifold aspects of that concept for caregivers and patients. He discusses relations among body, brain, and mind, and shows the many roles that consciousness plays. His concept DNA (Distant Nonlocal Awareness) helps explain the possibility that thinking and emotions can be transferred over long distances to communicate and to heal. Thought-provoking cogitations from a much-discussed practitioner. William Beatty
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About this edition

• Publisher: Shambhala
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1570628602
• ISBN 13: 9781570628603
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 369