An eclectic accumulation of life experiences and sound advice for healthier living from Hammerschlag (a former longtime chief of psychiatry with the Indian Health Service; The Dancing Healers, 1989—not reviewed). The attention to tribal belief systems here turns most often to southwestern groups—Hopi, Navajo, Apache—in keeping with the author's many years of service to the Indians of that region. But Hammerschlag casts his net more widely as well, partaking in Native American Church ceremonies; seeking out a Mayan healer in Belize; and generally making himself receptive to pearls of wisdom, whatever their sources. Even a chance encounter with an elderly woman in Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art proves fruitful, as she enlightens Hammerschlag in the true value of wearing sneakers. The personal odysseys and quests that accompany descriptions of spiritual healing are equally diverse, ranging from a repressed southern businesswoman's taking years to find the means to tell a domineering subordinate he's fired, to Hammerschlag's own battle to overcome his Holocaust-engendered bias that all Germans are Nazis at heart—His better judgment ultimately prevails during a visit to his ancestral home in Germany, where gentile friends of his father's welcome him with open arms. Here, autobiography and anecdote are mainstays in the rambling course to enlightenment—but while the storytelling is engaging, the testimonial approach too often seems an end in itself, with the whole proving rather less than the sum of its parts. As sincere and compassionate as it is disorganized—but of merit for its insightful moments, and for its underlying faith in the ability of individuals to redeem themselves.
Pub Date: July 9, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-78023-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
A soft-pedaling history that packs a lot of synthesis into a palatable-enough package.
An all-encompassing survey of how the Eastern practice took hold in America.
On the heels of Robert Love’s The Great Oom (2010)—an entertaining portrait of early yoga impresario Pierre Bernard and his popular health center—journalist Syman casts a wider net, uncovering yoga’s growth since the mid-19th century. In tackling the challenge of how to define yoga, the author’s study suffers from a kind of amorphous, throw-in-the-kitchen-sink syndrome. Syman continually probes into whether yoga is a religion or a health practice, and traces how proponents from Ralph Waldo Emerson to the Beatles fashioned it in their own way. Emerson’s discovery of “Hindoo” scriptures led to a lifelong fascination with Eastern thought, helping shape the transcendental message in his writings and poetry, while Thoreau’s Walden was the product of an ascetic in the yogi tradition. Thoreau “transmuted his work into an act of devotion,” writes the author, and “made a religion of writing.” Eastern gurus like Swami Vivekananda were featured at the World Parliament of Religions at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, and invited to teach at places like Green Acre, Maine, attracting mostly women. Bernard spread the benefits of Hatha Yoga—involving physically demanding breathing and body positions—from San Francisco to New York, and his nephew Theos Bernard traveled to the source, India and Tibet, and wrote popular books on the subject. Even Woodrow Wilson’s daughter Margaret eschewed the conventional lot for an “ideal life” as a seeker in India. Once yoga hit Hollywood, thanks to itinerant ex-pat Brits Gerald Heard and the Huxleys, stars like Gloria Swanson used it famously as their “youth and beauty secret.” Syman moves fluidly through the heady psychedelic years to the “new penitents” of today (e.g., Bikram), who like their yoga “sweaty and religious.”
A soft-pedaling history that packs a lot of synthesis into a palatable-enough package.Pub Date: June 29, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-374-23676-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
“Faith is good medicine,” pronounces this convinced though not necessarily convincing Christian physician, who here presents research on the connection between religion and healing, relates supporting anecdotes, and calls on his fellow doctors to utilize the spiritual component of the healing arts. Going even further than Herbert Benson, who identified the “faith factor” in Timeless Healing (1996), Matthews (Georgetown Univ. School of Medicine) delineates a dozen components of this factor—e.g., equanimity, temperance, social support, comforting rituals—that he says help prevent disease, enhance recovery, extend life, and create a sense of well-being. Drawing on case histories of his patients, he illustrates faith’s benefits in healing body and mind, recovering from addictions, improving quality of life, and facing death. Noting that spirituality alone has not been shown to have the same benefits as religious involvement, he recommends that individuals develop a spiritual program that includes frequent church attendance combined with daily prayer and regular reading of the Bible. Further, he urges doctors to question patients about the importance of religion in their lives and to use this information therapeutically. Thus, in Matthews’s view, a doctor who learns that a patient has stopped going to worship services would be justified in informing the patient that such behavior may have negative health consequences. Matthews, who uses spiritual readings and prayer with his own patients, has a vision of the doctor’s office as “a holy meeting ground between religion and medicine,” a vision that he acknowledges is seriously threatened by managed care’s increasing constraints on physicians’ time. While many would welcome a more human element in the doctor-patient relationship, Matthews’s vision is certain to be viewed skeptically, if not simply rejected, by large numbers of doctors and patients alike. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-87539-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
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