Medicine Books

I`ve read this book and did the lessions and I feel this infinite feeling of "everything is possible, just let it happen!" Being the observer, being with my heart, connecting with all dimensions and let go.
My wish is to learn more of what Vianna Stibal has to give. She is a great gift to the world.
There is more to learn, more to'experience, more to trust the process and God.

warmly
Kerstin Warkentin/Germany

I have recently taken the course in Theta Healing and find this book very good to help with information regarding belief work. This is easy to do on yourself and is very enlightening to see via muscle testing a form of kinesiology. I found that even though mentally i believed i was good enough my body told me i held beliefs opposite to this which was why I was not moving forward. Also i carried beliefs from past lives which were affecting me in this life. I would recommend this to anyone seriously willing to look at and change their belief patterns. Excellant book and guide, worth a read for healers and people already working on their beliefs. People with no realisation in their beliefs will also find it interesting information.

Vianna is one of the most remarkable healers that I've ever met. I highly recommend her book and seminars to anyone interested in the healing arts.

I had previously purchased Vianna's book "Go Up & Seek God". I had difficulty with the technique because visualization doesn't come easy for me - I am more of a "feeler". Plus, the word "God" was a barrier for me. However, I loved the possibilities of the technique enough to purchase this book. In this book, she seems to have expanded her concept of the source of creation and healing which is very appealing to me. I also appreciated her emphasis on self-help. She doesn't seem to have any of that 'guru' mentality. To me, the most important feature of her growth and expanded vision is her use of muscle testing to discover weird beliefs that are stuck in your energy field! That alone was worth the price of the book. I even bought a copy for a friend. There are many other ideas she explores in a very 'non-creepy' way such as mysterious implants, spirits, indigo children, etc. This book and the book "The Parallel Universe of Self" will change how you view life and its possibilities.

This book contains a healing technique that is very effective. By using meditation one is able to connect with God and facilitate healing.
Good reading for those interested in healing work,and those new to healing and meditation.
Vianna Stibal did an excellent job in sharing her techniques and knowledge. I could not put the book down, once I started reading.
I highly recommend this book.

Thanks,

Franklyn Holder

This book was a God send. I found this book after discovering my son had a transcient motor tic. We were told to learn to live with the ticing unless we wanted to heavily medicate our son. This book opened our eyes and put us in contact with other parents facing similar issues through their website. At first I put him on a number of different supplements and I was able to get the tics to subside almost completely. Someone on the website suggested I test his strep titers because following a fever his tics increased. If it wasn't for this book we wouldn't have known to check our sons titers which came back extremely high. Come to find out he had developed strep and was never treated for it. Once we put him on anitbiotics his tics subsided quite a bit. We are in the process of testing him for metals because we think a hep B vaccination may have contributed to his current condition. There is a wealth of info in this book and even more on their website. Tics and Tourette cases have skyrocketed in current years along with autism, ADHD and seizure disorders. These disorders have increased with the increased schedule of vaccines. Our son had seizures following a hep b vaccine at birth and the more research we did the more we were convinced that the toxins in the vaccine caused him to be more suseptable to an avalanche of medical issues due to the fact that his immune system had been compromised. Now we are working on ridding his system of toxins and refuse any and all vaccinations. My newborn was not vaccinated at all and she is the healthiest baby we've ever seen. She has been to a number of physicians who have said she's the healthiest and most developmentally advanced baby they've seen in a long time. God bless the people who wrote this book.

This book is terrific. I cannot say enough good things about it. I highly recommend it!

Tics and Tourette's: Breakthrough Discoveries in Natural Treatments

As a concert-pianist, music therapist, author, and an individual living with Tourette Syndrome, I must "take my hat off" to Sheila Rogers for bringing together a cascade of knowledge by various doctors, pediatric neurologists,
authors and many other leading authorities. As there is no cure for Tourette Syndrome, parents, families and adults are desperately seeking out new innovations and ideas with the hope that somewhere a new approach/approaches will come to the forefront. This book offers exactly what so many have been looking for, thought provoking ideas without the side-effects of medication, approaches that
are natural and display underlying common sense!
Since reading the book, I have followed many of the innovative ideas and have found improvement in my own tics.
As a music therapist, which is also a natural, non side effect technique, I have incorporated the many findings in this book with my own student's!

BRAVO! SHEILA J. ROGERS!, what will you come up with next!

Author: Raymond Vacchino M.Mus.(MT) A.Mus. L.R.S.M. Licentiate (hon.)

This book is eye-opening and thought-provoking. Just consider the possibility of your child being tic-free or at least know you might have the chance of reducing the incidence of tics without medication. Get this book, and share it with others.

This was an informative book. There certainly is hope for those suffering from these disorders that doesn't necessarily have to involve dangerous drugs. I am a candidate for a doctorate as a Naturopath and will use this in my resource library. The question to always ask is what is my body/mind trying to tell me with regard to my symptoms. This book will guide you to look at the symptoms and ask those questions. It will also help you begin your journey by suggesting various avenues to explore. It leaves the reader with a sense of hope for successfully treating the root causes naturally. Treatment can be multi-faceted, often like putting together a puzzle. The end result makes it worth all the time and energy spent. Hope is something soarly lacking in most medical resources for these disorders, that makes this book all the more valuable.

Bottom Line: Buy It
This is an empowering resource for anyone new to kinesiology or touch for health, and also to those interested in delving more into the fields.
Though there are classes to become certified in Touch for Health, you do not need a medical degree or any kind of certification to make use of this book in your own health.
It explains the basics, and breaks each organ meridian down to what muscle groups are impacted, how to test for that particular muscle, what nutrition supports or hinders that muscle, clearing the neurolymphatics, as well as how to trace, strengthen or sedate that meridian, numerous other things, and it's filled with great diagrams for reference.
I would also highly recommend Energy Medicine by Donna Eden as a great companion book.
My only complaint, is the size of the book (it's rectangle in shape) and its binding (spiral bound) is not very compatible for constant referencing.

If you are interested in Applied Kinnesiology, Energy Meridians, Muscle Testing, or health and healing, this is THE BOOK. This covers it all with a major wealth of information and is very deatailed and very elaborate.

If you like to track your energy to promote your health and/or vitality, this is an excellent reference book.

Touch for Health can help anyone, from physical to emotional. A must-have resource for anyone who wants an alternative to, or compliment Western medicine. This book is for the novice to the experienced, and a great reminder of how our emotions regulate our physical health.

This edition has been phenomenally improved! I owned the original published more than thirty years ago. The photos and illustrations clearly demonstrate various tests, point locations, acupressure principles, etc. The binding and protective cover have been completely redesigned. This manual contains a wealth of proactive health balancing and maintainence information, well organized for those who are being first introduced to the system. The acupressure sections of the book contain a wealth of traditional and innovative new information presented clearly and concisely. Highly recommended.

if you have high blood pressure get this book its a 10 ! knowledge is good for your health ! stay healthy ! go to saunna sweat you toxins!! and and excercise keep away from foods that have too much sodium like chinese food , can soups , processed foods ! eat natural and excercise and live to 100 !!!

This book offers a wide variety of treatment options (dietary/ behavioral modification, use of various supplements) in the treatment of hypertension, as well as a comprehensive review of the prescription medications available for this condition. I found the dietary suggestions quite helpful, and this is one of the few books I have read which offers sound advice on use of dietary supplements as well as their presumed mechanism of action.

I've used the Vaso-Guard therapy and it is working for me. The book is very comprehensive and I appreciate the holistic approach outlined.

I actually starting using the Dash diet and some of the supplements, not all. In a few days my blood pressure started to go down dramatically. It's amazing how much salt there is in everything. You really have to read labels and of course a lot more fruits and veggies!

All in all, very good reading. Nothing new here, just ties together all facets of controlling your high blood pressure: vitamins, supplements, exercise, diet and stress reduction. Presents a variety of programs and explains in detail how each can potentially lower and control hypertension. A good "how to" book to keep handy and refer to often. I have started the program and after only 3 weeks, my blood pressure has dropped. I plan to "wean" myself off the high blood pressure medication I am on now and go "totally natural".

First off, this is a great book. If anyone thinks this is just a glorified first-aid book, think again. Dr. Forgey's is quick to point out that some medical emergencies are best treated at a hospital by professionals, having said that he plays a "what if" game where evac is not possible and then provides detailed treatment strategies based on your level of skills and supplies on hand. It's a clever approach where plan A is better than plan B which is better than plan C which is better than plan D. Although, he'll point out that plan D is better than doing nothing. His sense of humor is not lost in this book which makes for a compelling read. It's a must have for laymen or practicing pro new to wilderness medicine. I couldn't recommend this book enough. My only complaint, if it qualifies as a complaint is that there isn't a 6th Edition with the latest in medical technology represented. Having said that, if a technique worked in 1999 it should still work in 2009 or 2019!

Favorite excerp from the book: "Red-hot branding irons and pouring gun powder into a wound and lighting it, while effective in killing germs and among Rambo's favorite techniques, also destroy good tissue." (Chapter 3 p.93 paragraph 2)

This one is a keeper, and at the current price, you should buy one for anyone that travels a lot...anywhere!


J.D.

I found this book to be of outstanding usefulness. The book is designed for a person with advanced medical skill. It is not a first aid book. It is what the title says "Beyond First Aid". The writer displays his knowledge of care from his own experience as an outdoors man and lays out and describes in detail what is needed under various adverese circumstances.
Mingmei Jiang [BVocEd&Train(C.Sturt)]

The book was a bit too basic for my taste. I understand that the layperson doesn't have access to many things that a doctor does. But to me, the book was more about band-aids than it is about stitches. I think it could have been a little meatier.
Due to the limited availability of many medicines to the average Joe (or Jane), I suppose the writer couldn't put in a lot of information on how to treat as a doctor would. But I was actually hoping for more of that kind of information.

It's no surprise that every reviewer has given this excellent and comprehensive book five stars.

Written by William Forgey, MD, former president of the Wilderness Medicine Society it goes beyond first aid, dealing with situations where you cannot merely administer initial care and then count on a rapid evacuation. Forgey writes with a light hand; he avoids jargon and has a dry sense of humor. For example (p. 157): "How do you calm a person who's just been bitten by a snake? Not surprisingly, just telling him to remain calm won't work."

There are seven chapters, beginning with assessment and stabilization, and going through body system disease symptoms, injuries, bites and stings, infectious diseases, and environmental injuries. There is an excellent appendix for putting together wilderness first aid/medical kits, both with prescription, and non-prescription meds, and with a bandaging module.

You don't have to be physician, nurse, or EMT to benefit from the book. All the information, is practical and hands-on; of value to the layperson who is interested in first aid and emergency medical situations. After an initial reading, Wilderness Medicine is a fine reference work.


A related website is: [...].

Living out in the wild, in the wilderness, is a contest with Nature. Most of the time, man wins the contest, but sometimes ... stuff happens.

Chapter One is about Assessment and starts with that key question: scene safe? Then Dr Forgey takes his reader through the ABCD's, vital signs, levels of consciousness, head to toe examination, shock, respiration rates, heart rates, and CPR. (The numbers for chest compressions and breaths has been changed by the AHA since Dr Forgey updated this book, but that is a minor issue.)

Chapter Two is about body system management. The focus of this chapter is on the systems in the head but the abdomen and reproductive system are given sections as well. There is also a very good, short section on poisoning from food poisoning to shellfish poisoning.

Chapter Three covers soft tissue wounds and treatments ... and suturing and stapling.

Chapter Four covers orthopedic injuries from head to foot.

Chapter Five covers bites and stings and anaphylactic shock. Interest-ingly Dr Forgey finds that rubber suction cups are as worthless as mouth suction. His lone endorsement is the Sawyer Extractor (which is available from Amazon.com).

Chapter Six is on infectious disease. Dr Forgey lists the most signif-icant *wilderness* diseases for North America and the world should one be contesting Nature abroad.

Chapter Seven's environmental injuries include hypothermia, heat stress, high altitude related illnesses, and ... being struck by lightning. Step current is caused when lightning hass struck and the current spreads out like a wave across the ground and the victim's feet are different distances from the strike point. Since the body has less resistance than the ground, a circuit is completed.

There are two useful appendices at the end of the book.

I am EMS certified and as a BLS instructor. I had a few quibbles with Dr Forgey such as his choice of prescription medications to list in one of the appendices. However I had no major disagreements and found the book to be more easily readable than any EMS book I have read. Lots of nuts and bolts and no fluff.

Also as I write this review, I am preparing a first aid segment for a TCLEOSE course on mantracking. Dr Forgey's book provided me with a lot of detail and anecdotes to include. However just as the title says this book is about wilderness medicine *beyond* first aid.

If you think that you might benefit from "therapy", listen to these programs. A large part of the effort of therapy is getting an individual to open to themselves, to see themselves as they really are, as a precursor to making changes in their life. Caroline Myss' recordings of "Energy Anatomy" and "Advanced Energy Anatomy" open the door to that introspection, giving you a framework in which to see your past life, and present actions. True, you may not agree with everything she says. But I guarantee you will find yourself nodding in agreement over and over again, at the insightful ways she presents the workings of human minds and emotions. And you will find Caroline Myss offering you answers to many of the questions you've asked yourself ("Why do I do this?" "Why did I do that?") over the years. I'm not recommending you forego therapy, if you really need it. Professional therapy can be very valuable. But I am saying that Caroline's recordings are a terrific way of getting in touch with yourself, and seeing yourself clearly (maybe for the first time), regardless of whether you want to pursue professional counseling, or not. And because (as Caroline says) the mind and emotions are prime determinants of the health of the body, this is an excellent series for anyone interested in taking good care of their body, and creating the best health possible for a vibrant and very happy life.

Caroline's wisdom is remarkably shared with examples that I can understand and encompass. This is not my first Caroline Myss tape, but it has helped me more than I can write. I'm from a family of "victim" archetypes and I have a tendency to overspend when I'm letting my "child" archetype have control of my thoughts. Caroline's tapes have helped me make positive changes in my life that I would have taken years to even comprehend before these tapes. Buy the CD version because you will want to listen to the lessons over and over.

I listened to the first Energy Anatomy set and loved it, so I bought the Advanced set. I was disappointed. There is less actual material, more pontificating. Fewer real life stories, more bold, brazen and mostly unusable assertions. Above all there is far less charm, humility, humor and humanity. Myss must have a clientele of new-age noodle heads who enjoy being berated. Or maybe she's just sick of her audience. But she says a lot of things like "you have no idea what the consequences of any action will be, and your foolish to think you do". Well, if that were true, getting from your bathroom to your car in the morning would be impossible, right? She says "you have absolutely no idea how much you've been influenced by the social mind." Well, actually I've given this quite a bit of thought, Carolyn, but then you wouldn't know that because YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who I am.

Also, content-wise, I don't find this to be about "advanced energy anatomy" at all, but about archetypes, which is a bit of a different subject. Pass on this title and listen to her previous work, before fame made her arrogant.

Described as Advanced it means exactly that. But, most chapters in the series of 9 CDs are easy to follow and really don't need too much previous spiritual reading. The material reveals what the listener is ready to hear no matter the stage of a person's inner development. Listen to chapters that appeal most to you. And when they appeal to you. You will be sure to learn something you've never heard before, gain new perspective you've never had before. And if you were to listen to the lessons again at another time, you will be sure to still pick up new insight only because your own experiences and spiritual maturity add to the experience of listening to this series.

Mysticism is being able to see the unseen world---to see the invisible world. Mysticim is deeply cultivated insight. Carolyn Myss teaches you through Advanced Energy Anatomy ways to cultivate your insight and presents mystical insight in easy to understand monologue. She is truly a leading teacher of our times. Her speech is easy to follow and her samples are always practical and involving.

The introduction and discussion archetypes can help you understand your self better and your relationships with others and the world better.

The lessons on creativity and spiritual vocations are inspiring. Being able to see your creativity and your dreams interwoven and inseparable can help you understand yourself better and seek fulfillment...at the same time realizing your divine potential.

The discussion on survival, creative and visionary intuition was only one of my favorite new discoveries.

For those who seek to heal themselves and maybe even others, this audio set is very, very enlightening.

So much wisdom and insight is found here! Don't just listen, take out your notebook, post it notes or journal and write the best of what you hear.

Of the many spiritual readings I have endeavored, here is a series that is well worth your money. For practicality, for spirituality... for joining heaven and earth within you...don't miss this series!

Caroline Myss at her best!! The most profound answers to the questions you didn't even know you had asked.
I listen to this series over and over and highly recommend it to anyone who is seeking to live in accordance with their higher truths.

I found this book to be very well written, it's easy to understand and it's easy to read. If you follow the advice in this book I believe you will live a long, healthy & satisfied life; and you will greatly reduced the chances of you suffering from strokes, heart attacks & disease etc. Kenneth Cooper displays a wealth of knowledge & experience which you can only benefit from and you will be doing yourself a favour if you get this book. Compared to some other books on health & fitness that I have read, this book would have to be one of the best.

I've had this book for many years and refer to it constantly. I think Kenneth Cooper has more sense than anyone else out there. If you don't have it, get it!

Although I prefer Dr. Cooper's first book, "Aerobics" this book is also well written, easy to understand, and conveys the importance of aerobic (principly in the form of jogging/running) as presented by the author.

Written 14 years after the original "Aerobics", Dr. Cooper has continued to evolve his principles about aerobic conditioning in this book

In this book Cooper also presents his thoughts on what constitutes productive and effective exercise as opposed to ineffective exercise and exercising to the point of over training.

I recommend this book to people who are new to exercise or people who are just starting out.

I bought'Aerobics' by this author in 1975 when I was 43 and slipping into the state where I was puffing to tie my shoe laces
a friend recommended the book. Without doing anything too drastic in the diet department other than to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and skip fried food.
I started off in the Poor category and commenced the running programme by walking the first week for 1 mile, having to make an effort to do so in under 20 minutes on the first day.
I followed Dr Coopers directions and was amazed to find how accurate his time estimates were and how well I felt as I reduced from 110 Kgs to 85 Kgs within 5 months.
I retired when I turned 69 and now at 73 I have a need to get my arse into gear as my weight has crept up and my cardiovascular system is in dire need of rejuvenating.
I note Dr Cooper has fine tuned his work and I am embarking on his cycling programme with confidence

Dr. cooper throughly explains how your body (mainly the heart and lungs) works. The book is about his studies on aerobic exercises and how it affects the body. He talks alot about his subjects and thier conditions and how aerobics helped rid themselves of thier problems. I would say to anyone who is serious about thier health, to buy this book. It's for those who are obese, those with heart and lung conditions and even those who have problems sleeping. This book is basically for anyone and everyone. Buy this book and it may help you live longer and healthier.

I am a veterinarian and use Pasquini's Anatomy of Domestic Animals all the time- I have been using the Pasquini resources for years including vet school. I recently purchased this book for a friend who is going to vet school as I knew that having this book would help her greatly during her first year anatomy courses and beyond. These books have incredibly detailed illustrations- the presentation is clear, and very funny!! As detailed as it is, the humor makes it light and fun - unlike most other anatomy books. The important differences between domesticated species are highlighted , main concepts are neatly emphasized for you and memory tools are presented to help you remember them. The entire Pasquini series helped me in vet school, studying for boards and now in practice. This is a must have for any veterinary student or veterinarian.

This is the best book to use as reference in a domestic animal anatomy class! Great illustrations accompy the easy to understand descriptions. I love this book!!

This is a great book - and was the only thing that helped me with my first year of canine and equine anatomy!

the delivery was rapid, even coming from the USA to england,item is new and in perfect condition. definantly a worthwhile buy. thank you

This book is an excellent soure to study anatomy, diagrams are very clear and there is not much writing however, what is written is useful and written well. probably best used in conjunction with another anatomy book in order to get the most out of it. I would highly recommend this book for any body studying anatomy.

Antipodes is a major milestone in the scholarly and scientific theory and methodology of visionary plants, entheogens, and the phenomena of the dissociative cognitive state, in the tradition of William James. Nitrous showed James the ordinary state of consciousness isn't enough for a full account of the mind.

Shanon critiques previous approaches to cognitive psychology, entheogens, and the mystic state and surpasses previous coverage of drug-induced mysticism. He presents and calls for a sophisticated, well-informed phenomenological Cognitive Psychology approach to the mind and to the dissociative cognitive state and primary religious experiencing.

He presents a research methodology, framework, and paradigm of extensive first-hand experience and training in the dissociative visionary cognitive state, with extensive comparison of experiential observations with many other experienced observers or trained practitioners, per Ken Wilber's Eye to Eye. He demonstrates how the altered, dissociative cognitive state informs the scientific study of the mind, and how a phenomenological cognitive psychology perspective informs the scientific, systematic study of the states induced by visionary plants.

He approaches cognitive psychology as a concern with overall dynamic mental activity and phenomena, rather than underlying-level mental representation. He critiques the established Psychology models of mystic-state experiencing, emphasizing that the visionary altered state affects and works comprehensively and non-specifically upon the entirety of experiencing and cognitive activity, including movement and performance, neither centered in uncovering hidden layer of already-ongoing sub-cognitive activity nor being restricted to merely the isolated faculty of imagination.

Antipodes opens a new era in research and theory on visionary plants and mythic metaphor. Myths were discovered through the use of substance-induced altered states of consciousness; the world of myth is the world of entheogens. Ayahuasca drinkers tend toward the universal metaphysical conclusion, of idealist monism: only interconnected thoughts exist.

Although noting Ancient Jewish mysticism used a Ayahuasca mixture such as Rue and Acacia or Mimosa, he emphasizes myths as metaphorical description of dissociative cognitive experiencing induced by visionary plants, not of the plants themselves like previous entheogen scholars. Myth describes dissociative experiencing through small-scale mythemes and larger-scale structures, and represents mental transformation over multiple sessions.

Shanon's coverage of mystical phenomena is less developed and coherent than of imagery. His categories of experiential phenomena and visionary metaphor don't cover the specifically religious-experiencing realm such as a willing sacrificing of kingship; he covers temples as merely a visual object, not really explaining why kings and temples are seen. He covers control-instability, personal autonomy issues, and fear as though separate from religious/spiritual divine-encounter aspects.

Practitioners fearfully cross themselves and pray for mercy before taking the Eucharistic potion. Cognitive dissociation brings thought-control crisis in which reliance on one's own powers and resources is of no avail; to combat fear and restabilize mental control, trust is needed in something beyond one's local autonomous self.

He advises mastering fearful thoughts and remembering you're an autonomous self who can influence thoughts -- yet asserts Ayahuasca drinkers feel the source and master of which thoughts happen isn't themselves, but external forces; it's scientifically unknown how thoughts originate; and the source of thoughts, control, and what happens in one's mind is not oneself, but a hidden, transcendent source.

Metaphorical descriptions of dissociative phenomena are also covered in Metzner's Unfolding Self; Culiano's Out of this World; Collins' Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys; Arbel's Beholders of Divine Secrets; and Thorne's Marihuana: Mysticism & Cannabis Experience. Antipodes is a must-have for consciousness and entheogen researchers.

To this date this book is the best analytical physiological examination and charting of the ayahusca experience that I have ever before seen. It is an exceptional book and a must read for any one interested in Psychology, Visionary substances, Ayahusca, spirituality, religion or the mind. Benny is going through the book charting cataloging and grouping the various Ayahuasca phenomena and experiences into the first ever-scientific exploration into the visionary state. He is very loyal to the scientific western model and I respect this as well as many of his ideas and personal views on the visionary experience as well as his deep admiration for Platonic thought. Although I would like to say that I feel it is quite a shame on his part that he discounts the Spiritual dimension so. I feel that in his attempt to categorize the ayahusca phenomena has allowed him to miss the Forest through the trees if you will. I think it is very presumptuous to assume the entire shamanism history of the world as well as the entire visionary and Ayahusca community is largely in fault to believe in the reality, how ever large or small it may be, to the spiritual dimension. But then again he is not a Physicist and the idea of Other physical realitys as noted in quontom theory is not something he belives in at all, I know I have talked with him personaly on this matter in Peru. But in benny's own words from the book " Ayahusca brings us to the very limits of what rational western psychology can comfortably know or answer he then delvs with the conclusions of his book with a examination of Platonic thought wich I fing beutiful and a perfect intalectial match to the tone of this amazing work. I give this astounding book 5 stars, and a must have for any personal Library.

Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience by Dr. Benny Shanon, Oxford University Press, 2002

This is a difficult review for me to write. There is only one word I can think of to describe how I feel regarding the level of scholarship Dr. Shanon has put forth in this book: flabbergasted.

Beyond this single word description, the rest I'll try to elaborate, however inefficiently.

I have read, I would guess, some one hundred plus books regarding ethnopharmacology and botany surrounding the likes of what is generically called "shamanism" - not to mention authoring two of my own books on the subject. I can honestly say, without solicitation or hesitation, that this book stands out on its own as hands down the best book I have ever read. I don't say this meaning within these certain parameters of study, i.e. ethnopharmacology or psychology, I mean - Period.

How could a book be the best I've ever read? That's a good question and one I'm somewhat startled over, but I'll try to elaborate:

For starters, the unbiased presentation. Dr. Shanon not only studied Ayahuasca, but took it himself 120 times (160 to date) for his study, something that is rare in most clinical investigations. Unlike other publications on Ayahuasca (see Metzner, 1999), this book is thankfully not new agey, and it does provide indigenous reports, as well as reports from people from all walks of life who've partaken in the Ayahuasca ceremony.

As someone who has many years of my own psychonautical exploration, including with Ayahuasca, I was awestruck at the literary composition and presentation of the Ayahuasca experiences that Shanon has provided his readers - so many of which I've experienced myself. I've never thought that this level of description of the experience was possible.

I've read Huxley's Doors of Perception, from which Shanon's book is aptly named, but Huxley did not deliver us near the understanding and clarity that Shanon has here.

Furthermore, during Shanon's investigation of the Ayahuasca experience, he destroyed old prejudiced paradigms of psychological beliefs systems and created new standards by which researchers may continue further study.

Beyond these points, to which I'm here admittedly overly vague, Shanon also brings the metaphysical toe to toe with science - staring each other eye to eye into the great dance of wisdom - of opposites. I can not think of another book (at least that I've read) where this has ever been accomplished - except, maybe, The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by Dr. Evens-Wentz.

As for my negative contentions regarding this book? I have none. I've never before read a book that I did not have some reservation or hesitation regarding some piece of evidence, presentation or conclusion. Not so here. At this point, I have no contentions against Shanon's work. He has raised the bar.

Antipodes of the Mind is the first book I've ever read that I whole heartedly endorse. Maybe this is due to my own level of ignorance in regards to the field of psychology, but I don't think so. I rather think Shanon has written one of the strongest arguments regarding any topic I've yet come across - much less the entheogenic experience.

This is THE BOOK to refer to when people ask about or question the authenticity of the entheogenic experience. This is THE BOOK to refer to when someone doesn't get what it's all about. Now the question is: will they read it? So, therefore, I guess I do have one contention: That I had read it sooner myself.

Simply immense! You simply MUST read this book! 5 Stars!

INTRODUCTION
What happens when a worldly Israeli cognitive psychologist goes to the Amazon Basin where he ingests the famed psychotropic concoction Ayahuasca (the `vine of the dead') again and again and again? Our intrepid philosophical psychologist is no longer a sprightly youth, maddened for adventure. He is instead an accomplished theoretician with widely published articles (several in this journal) and a noted book (*The Representational and the Presentational*, 1993) that speak the from the perspective of cognitive (or phenomenological, for Shanon) psychology against the reductive tendency to view the mind's activities as created by the the brain's activities. Even before his Amazonian quest, he placed himself in the Gibsonian camp seeing the mind as dynamic intermediary between organism and environment and active participant in both. What did happen is this extraordinary book, a scientific analysis of his own visions and the education of both Shanon's views and, perhaps, his soul.

Benny Shanon's accomplishment in this unique and carefully written treatise is nonpareil. In his landmark attempt to chart and classify the experiences that follow ingesting the Amazonian brew, Ayahuasca (always capitalized by Shanon), he demonstrates a will to observe and explain as relentless as carbon steel, but his seeing and experiencing also require him to be as flexible as tungsten when he must shape his interpretations within experiences that have all but overthrown the pretense of objective observation. Indeed, as he becomes `educated' through his journeys with this brewed plant compound, apparently beginning his own shamanic initiation, his will, his very self must capitulate to experiences beyond words. Later, back at his desk, Shanon will use his notes and memory to go discover the order of things. This breakthrough study will achieve the respect and renown it deserves, but it is currently causing a stir in certain circles and amongst the openminded international intelligentsia.

Shanon has written a slow-rising classic that should stay aloft for the duration of our era, not just as cognitive psychology or even as another narrative of the psychedelic experience, but as the revelation of the boundless potentials within the human journey itself. Since its release, it appears to have received universal praise from other critics and readers. However, word has not filtered out into the hungry minds of the general public or surely *Antipodes*(1) would be on a bestseller list. Either its subject matter - pharmaceutically induced altered states of consciousness - is still considered too politically threatening or Benny Shanon needs to hit the talk show circuit. His book enters deep waters yet never loses its way. It may be a challenge for some to wade through his classifications but in doing so may find their thinking clarified. Shanon's writing is clear as a mountain brook. He wastes no words for grand effect but always goes straight and true for the point of the topic he had begun. This makes for a very satisfying read, which is helped immensely by the greater story lurking within it to do with one man's awakening from the sleep from self consciousness. *Antipodes* is neither obscure nor excessive, so it might make a good selection for a book-of-the-month for educated readers. Oprah, are you listening?

Nothing exactly like this has ever been written before(2), beautifully rendered and incisively analysed yet finally superseding its own analytic. The reader joins a dedicated scientist on a journey that most would consider well beyond the possibility of scientific data gathering, except in terms of chemistry or anthropology. This journey is a phenomenological analysis, Shanon's close observation his own experience. He wastes no pages speculating on what the neural correlates of his visionary experiences might be, not even taking much time to explain the active ingredients of the `brew' or how it changes the brain. Within this work (but not always within his own experience), the phenomenological-analytical approach seldom wavers. Such an approach still requires a certain distance, so when the object of study is his own earthshaking visions or emotional tsunamis rising up to lay bare every suppressed anxiety, guilt, or self delusion - not even to mention the digestive trauma often encountered(3), one finds oneself in mute admiration for this stalwart scholar who steadily perseveres, refusing to be swept away from his purpose. He admits to making wrong choices in his early Ayahuasca journeys, lingering at banquet or resisting the lure of jaguar metamorphosis when he should have continued his quest, but he learns and begins again. As new worlds open before him, sometimes terrifying, he never retreats in a desperate attempt to turn the experience off. But he also learns when to surrender. Song pours from him amongst strangers, but he knew he must allow the joy to have voice. Though only briefly alluded to, it seems his perseverance and purity of purpose allowed him to finally transcend the limits of knowledge altogether by surrendering his cognition and his very self in a metanoia beyond the realm of words, memory, or interpretation. Needless to say, this experience is not described.

It is in this sense that *Antipodes* may find itself attacked (or ignored) from two opposed positions at once. Most hard science does not consider phenomenology a respectable undertaking since one's subjective experiences can neither be observed by anyone else nor shown to produce repeatable effects. One attempting to draw up analytical structures for drug-induced visions is likely to be dismissed out of hand as delusional, taking hallucinations for reality(4). On the other hand, true believers - religious followers, mystic esotericists, New Agers - will be annoyed for though Shanon puts the stamp of `reality' upon his altered-state journeys, he continues to be skeptical about the existence of supernatural deities behind the metaphysical curtain. In his captivating Prologue he states: `For years I characterized myself as a "devout atheist". When I left South America I was no longer one' (p. 9), but he later explains that his `theism' is more related to a Spinozan pantheism grounded in creative dynamics than to anybody's pantheon or hierarchy of static divinities. He also rejects as unlikely the many reports of enhanced psi powers during the Ayahuasca intoxication (noting that increased perceptual sensitivity and interpersonal attunement can explain the `mind reading' he has experienced and heard reported). He remains open, however, expressing the wish that reports like that involving the remote viewing of an actual European city by an Amazonian native who had neither seen pictures nor heard stories of such a place should be objectively investigated.

Others will argue, and have done so, that immersion in the vision quest involves the suspension of the judgmental, cognitive faculty. Shanon seems to have learned the right steps to his dance between reception and cognition. When the moment presents itself, he allows the imagery or ambiance to take over; but when he returns he makes note of all that can circumscribed. Such imagistic encouragement is similar to Spinoza's intuitive mode of knowing, as Shanon notes (p. 205), but he also stands by the need for subsequent careful analysis in the same way elucidated by Whitehead (1978): `The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation' (p. 5). Whether this `rational interpretation' infects that which is so interpreted, thus standing on the primary ontological ground beyond that of visionary experience remains an open question, to be asked again below.

In what follows, I will attempt the briefest of summaries though such is an injustice to this groundbreaking psychological cartography of what is terra incognita to most of us. I will then share my perplexities and a personal response, before concluding.

SUMMARY
As a reader, I was hooked immediately by the dramatic Prologue as well as the few selected illustrations, all details from the artwork Planos by Brazilian `shaman-turned-artist' Céu. Each detail is a picture unto itself - a `frame of reference' - yet `the big picture' reveals them all as aspects of a greater dynamic spiralling out from or in towards a core of light that no doubt `passeth all understanding'. The plates seemed to be metaphor for *The Antipodes of the Mind*, frame of reference within frames of reference, each part structured by the whole, while the whole is changed by the activity of the parts.

In the Prologue, Shanon tells the story of his first encounters with the Ayahuasca brew and the questions that brought him to begin his mammoth research project. In his first experience of any consequence he had visions that included jaguars and snakes. He learned later that this was commonplace for Ayahuasca drinkers and his professional curiosity as a cognitive psychologist was roused: `Snakes and jaguars seem to be just too specific to define cognitive universals' (p. 7). But he also underwent horrible visions of human cruelty throughout history, including what must have been especially wrenching, the Jewish Holocaust. But rather than back away or fall into bitter cynicism, he countered it with contemplation of the beauty that humans had brought into the world: `However evil and petty human beings are, I thought, they are also the creators of some of the most beautiful things that exist in the universe. With culture and art, as well as with religion and spirituality, humankind can be redeemed' (p. 5). The anguish or fear evoked by unexpected and shocking presentations of evil must be the gate that has turned away many other first time drinkers from further pursuing this course. Through his faith in life and the human journey, Shanon himself emerged beyond the gates in a centre of serenity within which it seemed the world and himself was born anew: `It seemed this was the first day of creation' (p. 6).

After these first world-changing experiences with the Santo Daime Church (daime=Ayahuasca), he was thrown into a period of critical self-analysis. He knew he had to further study this vine and its power, but how? It seems he first had to accept who he already was, an accomplished cognitive psychologist; he confirmed this identity by ending his self-analysis and beginning his journey to other realities found through Ayahuasca and then a long critical, objective, and categorical analysis of the Ayahuasca experience. This book is the fruit of his labours. It is clear, however, that he had also personal motivations to discover a way to confront the human dilemma of good and evil, as well as facing (or `being faced by') the everpresent questions of a spiritual nature.

Shanon set the time aside, returned to the Amazon, underwent prescribed purifications, and became a dedicated student of the School of Ayahuasca, a mystes into its mysteries. He knew from the first he would never `graduate' as the result of a handful of Ayahuasca sessions, so he took his work seriously indeed. He travelled to gatherings among the three churches (two Christian inspired, one an offshoot of the Umbanda movement) in Brazil that use Ayahuasca as their sacrament and participated in their organized sessions. He sat with Amazonian tribespeople under the jungle canopy, often with the guidance of a ayahuasquero, the `specialist of the sacred', a shaman. Later, as he began to master his visions, he journeyed with few others among accomplished shaman-healers. He shared the brew with experienced users in urban settings, and, when he felt ready, flew solo. At the time of publication, he had gone on over 130 Ayahuasca journeys, though the `core corpus' of his phenomenological research work is his first 67 sessions. Each session was summarized at its conclusion. Beyond that, he read everything he could find on the brew, from early reports of missionaries or explorers to current extended scientific analyses. None combined scholarly analysis with extended personal experience. Finally, he set out in good cognitive psychological fashion and interviewed others who had just concluded their own sessions or anyone in general who also had extensive experience with the brew: `My estimate is that, all told, the data discussed here are based on about 2,500 Ayahuasca sessions' (p. 410).

Then Shanon got back to his desk to reveal the structure of the world (perhaps that should be `worlds'). The bulk of the book consists of prolonged exegeses, enumeration and elaboration of steps, systems and subsystems, categories of subcategories within supercategories, and lists of effects and affects. His point of departure is the phenomenology of his `core corpus'. I will not summarize here his structural program, central to his topic as he deems it to be. Strange to say, I rarely found this approach tedious. For one thing, as noted above, the objects of his classifications are confrontations and participation with other realities, so there is a veritable tale of wonders interwoven within the data. Running through the exposition like an unruly stream upon well-manicured fields is the underlying narrative of the paradigmatic hero's journey into meaning. Furthermore, Shanon's mind, as expressed in his writing, is so refreshingly clear and organized that one feels perfectly secure in boarding his `aeroplane' to survey mysteries of terror and delight well beyond most of our experience or comprehension. It may be, however, that Shanon needed this comprehensive organization as a grounding for his more ultimate revelations. Perhaps it was necessary for him `systematically to chart the various phenomena that Ayahuasca may induce and *to establish order in them*' (p. 48, my italics), so he could at least recall the pathway back toward the Source, the `still point of the turning world'.

Shanon learns there are stages of advancement into these mysteries: The novitiate begins passively watching wonders unfold as on a screen, but with experience and courage, learns to enter the vision and explore its reality from within. Then there comes a stage where a certain degree of control over the unfolding reality is possible, though such `control' is always partial and participatory - Shanon often uses the metaphor of playing an instrument or being played as such: `Thus, I say that the Ayahuasca experience is like music played on an instrument which is the soul and that this music is a perfect mirroring of one's entire being' (p. 380). Indeed, the final stage seems to involve gaining the power to engage many worlds (or realities) simultaneously, but also the power to act in this world in ways never previously attained or attempted, such as the expressive arts or guidance and healing. The `grades' of the School of Ayahuasca are summarized thus:

`First there was an exposition. ...the second course was discipline. ... The third course of my schooling was primarily concerned with healing and disease. ... The grades that followed focused on the sacred and involved powerful spiritual experiences. Then I had a long period-coupled with my partaking of Ayahuasca with traditional Amazonian healers-that focused on shamanism. ... The subsequent course ... focused on a variety of more specific issues' (pp. 302-3).

To get this far, the novitiate or mystes has endured many trials and temptations, yet s/he must be bold enough to know when to surrender to the reality that presents itself and wise enough to know when to actively alter it. One must have overcome the narcissistic limitations of one's fears while not inflating vanity over one's piloting control or expanding knowledge. Such hubris, as myths have taught us, may lead to the pride that goes before a fall.

Shanon found the pure heart and `empty centre' to be accepted amongst the healers of the Amazon rain forest. He mentions that now he feels his role has become more performative than explorative as guide, hierophant, and something of an ayahuasquero himself. In terms of powers, Benny Shanon emerges as `Benny Shaman' (though I doubt he would admit this or appreciate the wordplay). In terms of wisdom, he states his conviction that the most expressive gesture of ontological truth is found simply in songs of praise for all creation, in the 'Hallelujah' of his ancestors. As to the ontological question of what exactly is being so praised, Shanon avers it is not anything at all but the joy of the eternal dynamic process - neither God as an entity (or any other form of the supernatural), nor is it humanity or nature, as such. Creation is what the name implies, an ongoing unfolding of the infinitely potent creative core of all things, including ourselves.

Obviously, such `knowledge' cannot be attained either through phenomenological or analytic reduction. It is everpresent beyond the edge of the `known world', that is, beyond the conscious mind `Wherefrom words turn back,/Together with the mind not having attained...' (*Tattirïya Upanishad* 2.9). It is at this point that Shanon the scientist must give up on science and even knowledge in any usual sense and admit that such direct communion exceeds communication: `Yet, there were occasions that it was clear to me that I had to make a choice-if I really wished to undergo the experience presenting itself to me, I would have to forgo my future recollection of it and give up any thought of ever talking about it' (p. 355). Furthermore, even the path to the edge of this unspeakable awakening is one not of ordered signposts and structured roads but of intuitive knowledge, well beyond categorical reasoning. After all his phenomenological analysis, Shanon at last confesses that

`very poignantly, I realized how limited the scientific approach is. It was evident to me that [in] pursuing this stance, there are realms of knowledge that can never be attained. I further comprehended that there are levels of knowledge that demand one to let go and relinquish all critical, distanced analysis. ... In this respect, despite all its limitations in terms of sociological power and cultural permanence, the indigenous stance has the upper hand' (p. 356).

PERPLEXITIES
I continue to be perplexed about several things hinted at in this tome but not fully explained and I outline them here. These mainly result from my own application of traditional reasoning to that which eludes it or from Shanon's expressed reticence to reveal more personal detail or delve into metaphysics. My perplexities are mainly to do with the world of light and truth revealed to the author and apparently to other experienced Ayahuasca drinkers. Either the dark side is less real or it plays a smaller role than I had imagined.

Unlike with LSD, there are said to be no `bad trips' with Ayahuasca. Shanon admits he interviewed no one who drank the turbid brew but once, which would surely be the result if anyone `freaked out' or was just turned off by the whole experience. The nausea, gastritis, and vomiting, emphasized in other first person accounts, may be enough to cause one to avoid the substance next time, but actual `mind-blowing' has not been reported, to my knowledge. Shanon makes it clear that when faced with a personal crisis under the intoxication one must soldier on, dealing with fear and related negative emotions in as grounded and unperturbed manner as possible. Still, crises occur: `Quite commonly,' he states matter-of-factly, `people feel that they are about to die' (p. 57). Elsewhere he notes that a mental breakdown is real possibility. Yet not in Antipodes or anything else I have read to do with Ayahuasca experiences is such a breakdown recorded. Is it bad-trip free?

Along these same lines, my all-too-human binary thinking gets skewed in Shanon's brief discussion of the ontological status of good and evil. On the same page he reports that `Ayahuasca leads people to the conclusion that the world contains both good and evil, that the two are intertwined, and that the ultimate reality is beyond good and evil', but that, `Finally, there are visions in which one feels one is encountering the Supreme Good' (p. 174). I realize I'm probably not getting the mystical paradox here, but elsewhere it's said that Ayahuasca has a cosmic sense of humor (not always benign), that it lies or hides as much as it reveals. Is the Supreme Light without shadow, or what?

I wonder also about the dark side of the initiatory process, especially shamanic initiation. In the pattern of the ritual death-rebirth cycle, there must be a dark night of the soul before the dawn of revelation. Shamanic lore especially emphasizes the almost universal experience of death and dismemberment(5) - apparently the death of the everyday self - before the shaman returns, being one with death yet remaining alive. Shanon modestly and perhaps wisely downplays the significance, but he acted as shamanic healer and guide for others and was accepted at least among one ayahuasquero guild. The fact of this exceptional book's existence is enough to convince me of Shanon's shamanic metamorphosis. No ordinary insight could have carried it through to the end. What I want to know is what sort of ritual or visionary death did our author have to endure? Or did he achieve his dawn without a dusk? Admittedly, he states such an autobiographical confessional was not his purpose here and may have to await a future literary venture.

And one wonders about the whole question of the existence or creation of orderly categories from the data resulting from his phenomenological and statistical analysis. What sort of lists, tables, categories, and structures are being brought forth here, and why? On the one hand he notes commonalities in his visions and those of many others as well as intriguing parallel reactions to these visions, especially amongst the Ayahuasca cognoscenti. As noted, it was in fact these inexplicable similarities that set him on his quest in the first place, professionally speaking at least. Does he then think his structural analyses is revealing the universal latticework of creation, or at least of the Ayahuasca experience? Or is he himself creating such a latticework to place over the chaos of creation? Neither, it seems, or both. Shanon is well aware of the ambiguities of his project and how boundaries in the realms of visionary experience seem to shift or even, with a wink and smile, disappear altogether. In a universe in which the only constant is creative dynamism itself, it is impossible to distinguish between that which one discovers and that which one projects. He states that `there is no clear-cut differentiation between interpretation and creation. ... In essence, all is interpretive, all is creative' (p. 351). If it is so that all phenomena are simultaneously the product of interpretation and creation then - aside from the author's need, personal or professional, `to establish order in them' (p. 48) - it feels like such cartographic detail is mapped onto shifting tides that will change with the phases of the moon.

This is a slippery metaphysics with which we are left. Shanon lays his detailed phenomenological analysis upon the creative essence with some ambiguity, it seems to me, like placing the picnic blanket on the lake. If our acts participate in the unfolding of reality then categories, maps, structures, laws of science, and what have you achieve their substance over millennia of cultural or even transcultural `use', which results in the reality of habitual consensus. They are as real as anything else that seems to just be there, in one place, here and now. Does this leave his categories and structures and patterns with a ground on which to stand? Probably - at least temporarily. In fact, his studies prove beyond much question that certain visionary and experiential patterns reoccur across cultures and in times far apart.

Several times Shanon asserts that his purpose is not to explore ontological questions, but he takes enough steps in that direction that the reader understands that when Shanon finally states that `the view put forth here is that the Ayahuasca experience is one of generation and creation' (p. 383), he is tantalizingly close to claiming this for our usual experience too.

He even briefly discusses the source of these patterns of creation, which brings me to my last perplexity, the uncertainty over the terms `creativity' and `imagination'. Early on, Shanon assures us that `Ayahuasca visions [exhibit] a beauty that is beyond imagination' (p. 17)', referring to our usual notion of the imagination as a post-language faculty activated by the self from other images already stored in memory. In speculating on the source of such beauty, he denies that such creative imagining comes either from a `world of forms', already `out there' in their own ultimate reality or from psychology, that is, the unconscious `in here'. So, in his interpretation, neither Platonic ideas nor Jungian archetypes will do.

To account for the reality of Ayahuasca experiences (and by implication, all experience), he posits a creational reality in which our own creativity participates but which ultimately exceeds our personhood or existence. So, `the notions of "human creativity" or "power of imagination" turn out to be much more fantastic then they are usually thought to be" (p. 396). Yes, indeed, but the originality of this position is where perplexity arises. In the first place, isn't this the core of the Romantics' apotheosis of the transpersonal imagination? Creativity as the core can also be found in some form in both Bergson and Whitehead.

In the second place, I think Shanon is too dismissive of Jung's concept of the collective unconscious by reducing it to residing `in here', but this may be mistaken assumption based on Jung's misuse of Freud's original term, the unconscious. In his later years, Jung wrote a good deal about the *objective psyche*, meaning that the collective or transpersonal unconscious is the very world with which we engage and which is our source. Shanon refers approvingly several times to the somewhat similar notion of the *anima mundi* (`world-soul') as source of the real, both subjective and objective. Then again, as a result of his experiences of communion he would likely disagree that the world or world-soul should be understood as `unconscious' (even if Jung meant `unconscious from the perspective of our self-contained conscious').

The Jung-inspired archetypal psychologist James Hillman (1975) brings us to the point where Jung meets Shanon when he proclaims that every perception, cognition, or memory is fantasy-laden and not possible without such imaginative elaboration. Fantasies, in this sense, are not individual: `The revelation of fantasies exposes the divine, which implies that our fantasies are alien because they are not ours' (p. 184). This may add some flesh to the ontological skeletal frame of Shanon's `generation and creation' pantheism, though he adds the last note that in the `dance' of creator and created it is impossible to tell who is leading.

Allow me to reemphasize that my above `perplexities' are not in the way of criticism. These are questions I would love to sit and discuss with the author; no doubt the inadequacy of my understanding would soon be made plain. I should even apologize for critiquing the few hints of ultimate matters which he deigned to mention, for he himself admits they have not yet been fully thought through. However, feeling perplexed by Shanon's extraordinary encounters and the great work of his phenomenological analysis, I couldn't help but wonder, `What does it all mean?' Perhaps in his next book Shanon will explore an answer to that question.

PERSONAL REACTION
After reading Antipodes with great pleasure and new discovery each time over several careful readings, I retain two reactions that are probably mine alone. One is that I am now sure I will never seek an opportunity to drink the brew of the `vine of the dead'. Put simply, I doubt that I have the strength of character it took for Shanon to advance from audience member to conductor of the orchestra. In part, my reticence arises from my tendency to wander off and become thoroughly lost in the aforementioned psychedelic era, sidetrack to sidetracks. It is my understanding - faith, if you will - that cognition, rationality, and analysis are themselves particular cultural fantasies. When one give intuition primacy, one tends to wander as way leads on to way. Shanon could absorb his incredible experiences and then later at his desk, `establish order in them'. In fact, to the extent that it is possible, he has done just that. However, I fear I would become an Ayahuasca drifter, lost in other realities, but with no wish to return and nothing in order at all.

The second reaction was not one I had expected. *The Antipodes of the Mind* gave me, first dimly then with increasing illumination, *hope*, suffusing me generously with that unfamiliar but uplifting emotion. By reminding me, `There is more here than meets the eye and you know it!', a flood channel of forgotten memories opened and I was able to recall the moments I had found myself elsewhen or elsewhere (and not always as the result of substance ingestion). In the need to `get real' as I grew older, I had simply suppressed such experiences of wonder and awe because they were not `useful'. I had pushed aside visions or encounters that threw into doubt the solid finality of day-to-day reality so I could join the grim march through the lifespan toward dusty death. I'm no fatalist, but I felt as though this book fell into my hands at just the right time. It is not just poetic license but a fact of consciousness-limited awareness that we walk about in worlds unrealized. So I wish to end this book review with appreciation rather than criticism: Thanks, Benny. You've done wonders. Hallelujah to you and your important book.

NOTES
1. There is no singular form of `antipodes'. From my 1938 Funk 'n Wagnalls *New Standard Dictionary*: `antipodes, n. sing. & pl. 1. A place or region on the opposite side of the earth; also, any two places or regions so opposed; as, australia is the antipodes (or at the antipodes) of England. 2. Those who live on the diametrically opposite sides of the earth; as, our antipodes sleep while we wake; the two nations are antipodes.'

2. The only comparable work I know of may be John Horgan's (2003) recent study. Former senior writer at *