Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8744 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 317 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
What sets Anatomy of the Spirit apart is Carolyn Myss's ability to blend diverse religious and spiritual beliefs into a succinct discussion of health and human anatomy. For example, when describing the seven energy fields of the human body, she fuses Christian sacraments with Hindu chakras and the Cabbala's Tree of Life. Fortunately, Myss is a skilled writer as well as researcher, able to ground her extensive spiritual and religious discussions by using real-life stories and a tight writing style. Those who are squeamish about the notion of biography affecting biology will find this book a struggle (in one chapter, Myss links pancreatic cancer with a man's refusal to unburden his life and start fulfilling his dreams). Many, however, hail Myss for creating a valuable contribution to the ongoing exploration of spirituality and health. --Gail Hudson

Synopsis
"Anatomy of the Spirit" is the first book to unify Eastern and Western spiritual healing into a programme for physical healing and personal power. In this breakthrough view of mind, body and spirit, Caroline Myss demonstrates that the seven stages through which everyone must pass in the search for consciousness and spiritual maturity are the same in all traditions and are also the same seven stages for healing. During her many years of research into the power centres of the body, Myss has uncovered strong evidence that each illness we develop corresponds to a very specific pattern of emotional and psychological stress and that certain beliefs and attitudes influence corresponding areas of the human body. For example, fears regarding financial stress affect the health of the lower back; emotional barriers to experiencing love undermine the health of the heart. A strong need to control others or your environment influences the health of the sexual area of your body. Caroline also discusses in depth why people do not heal and the reasons why we often find ourselves in difficult circumstances that never seem to change.

About the Author
Caroline Myss
Caroline Myss, Ph.D., is a pioneer and international lecturer in the fields of energy medicine and human consciousness. Since 1982 she has worked as a medical intuitive: one who 'sees' illness in a patient's body by intuitive means. She specializes in assisting people in understanding the emotional, psychological and physical reasons why their bodies develop illness and is widely recognized for her groundbreaking work with Dr C Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Shealy Institute for Comprehensive Pain and Health Care in Springfield, Missouri and co-founder and past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, in teaching intuitive diagnosis. Together they wrote The Creation of Health: Merging Traditional Medicine with Intuitive Diagnosis. She is also the author of Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Anatomy of the Spirit and the forthcoming Sacred Contracts.

Customer Reviews

beautiful yet flawed, like the modern human
For me, picking up this book for the first time was yet another giant leap in my own personal development. A real page turner. I've never enjoyed reading this much in a long time. I had no idea I was so interesting. Caroline Myss presents great insights into the human psyche with this book. So much rang true. Her methodology appears very well practised and I continue to learn so much every day from the age old concepts disclosed kept in mind. Where I believe Anatomy of the Spirit lacks, however, is when it comes to the Chakras. I'm sticking my neck out here as the orthodox view would conflict with mine, but how can the base chakra be the logical starting point for spiritual development? Does your crown chakra really have higher status than the chakras below? Merely understanding (true first chakra) the path down through the chakras enabled the rest of my development to feel so natural. So many questions stem from this book. That is why I rate it so highly. This, and the follow up Sacred Contracts. 4 big stars for this one. My journey continues.

Dissecting the Anatomy
In "Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing," readers are asked to reject their religious beliefs.

Hitting on the same core market as Tolle, Chopra, and even Dr. Phil, Myss has garned support for her wildly accepted books by pointing out how broken we all are.

We are broken, aren't we? We are tired. We've endured a tough economy, the Asian tsunami, divorce, 9-11, and lots of personal struggles we never tell anyone. That is what Myss wants to address. But she does it the wrong way. Seven steps seem easy enough to fix our mistakes, hurts, our loneliness and our rejections.

According to Myss, the math runs a little like this:

A Hindu practice + a Christian practice + a Jewish practice, mixed just so = healing and inner strength. She doesn't stop there. She adds Buddhism whenever she can.

Now, Christians who follow the Bible know this is against the rules. In fact, Jews who who read the same Scripture in Deutoronomy know this is against the rules. Why does this matter in a book review? Because categorically, Myss' asserts that Judeo-Christian theology lies when it says, "put no other god before me," and what Jews and Christians believe is wrong. "Anatomy of the Spirit" is all about syncretism, and Myss fails when she thinks spiritually grounded people will accept this.

Mixing Gods is a bad idea, but Myss presents it as a possibility. Not acknowledged is that a Jew and Christian must both reject a key Scripture to do so. Moses was pretty ticked when he came back with the Ten Commandments and saw what the Jews were doing with the gold idol. That's what Myss is asking Catholic, Jewish and Protestant readers to do: build a new god from nearby resources.

Dr. Phil has more to say than Myss when it comes to healing. He doesn't mask his ideas with a false spirituality. Instead, he just tells the reader to fess up where we've messed up, and to get over the pain others have caused us. He tells us to move on, and start doing what we should be doing. Myss, however, muddies it with watered-down mistaken theology.

More depth and truth can be found in "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things" by Robert Fulghum. Fulgrum breaks it down into a more honest language.

Anthony Trendl

Understanding Spiritual Health
Caroline Myss explains the human energy system in a comprehensible and easy to follow manner. This is a book that you have to buy - not borrow - as it is something you would want to refer to regularly. Caroline explains the Chakra system and provides an in depth account of how various health issues stem from emotional, psychological and spiritual sources. An absolute MUST for those interested in the esoteric.