Anatomy of the Spirit

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

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beautiful yet flawed, like the modern human - Rated
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 - Rated
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 - Rated
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.

Insightful journey into our own role in living healthily - Rated
Dr Myss reveals our body as the complex relationship between our physical, mental and spiritual selves, and describes how teachings from christianity, buddhism and the ancient kabala converge in identifying the points of conflict in our lives. This book offers a path of self exploration and self discovery that may lead us to heal our ailings and live life to the full. Most enlightening, and devoid of jargon.

Anatomy for the modern age - Rated
Caroline Myss describes herself as a medical intuitive. This book is a summation of her insights and conclusions gained over 14 years of practising and teaching others. She describes her own extraordinary experiences which first led her to commit to this work, and how study and a gruelling schedule of workshops finally led her to teaching others how to "read" their own health. The book scores well in establishing and explaining its own language, drawing together 3 rich religious traditions and showing how each of them describe a central truth about the journey of spiritual growth. She compares the Hindu teaching of the seven chakras, the seven Christian sacraments and the ten points of the Tree of Life described in the Kabbalah, the mystical tradition of Judaism. Although there are ten points to the Tree of Life, Caroline Myss shows that some of these points are properly paired, so that they too describe seven stages of spiritual development, each with its own sacred truth. The majority of the book takes each chakra or stage in turn, describing the ways in which we are called to develop at each level, and the physical symptoms which can arise when we fail to heed this call. I found the book rich in insight and wisdom. Where the book worked particularly well for me was the frequent use of examples from real life case histories, relating intuitive images to the circumstances of the patient's life, and how the patient had subsequently healed, or sometimes how they had failed to heal. This format made it easy to draw parallels and comparisons with one's own life or that of friends. The unsentimental and scientific attitude of the author also helped to encourage the same detached approach for me as a reader. There is much food for thought contained here, whether you consider yourself healthy or not. Along the way, the book has many interesting things to say about the development and use of intuition, which Caroline Myss graphically describes as "symbolic sight", and the spiritual journey in general. I felt that the end of the book was a little disappointing. The guidance for the reader - a daily meditation which amounts to a personal health check - comes only in the form of a very brief "afterword". A lot of information has gone before, but a more thorough description, and perhaps some examples of how people have helped themselves in this way, would have offered me more encouragement to do the very thing that the book aims to promote. But this is a minor point, and perhaps experience with the meditation would be worth more than a few more pages of description. Overall, I heartily recommend this book, a thought-provoking read in an engaging style.