LIGHTNING AT THE GATE

Jeanne Achterberg is an expert on healing through visualisation and author of excellent books on the subject, such as Imagery in Healing. She has also been senior editor of the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine and research director for an alternative cancer treatment programme at North Hawaiian Community Hospital. In other words she has more knowledge than most in the area of cancer treatment and how to deal with illness. In this book she gives a very moving and honest account of how she had to call upon all her knowledge as well as support from her friends – many of whom are also experts in alternative healing - when she herself was diagnosed with cancer and only given a limited time to live. As one can imagine, despite all her and her friends' knowledge and support, this turns out to be a journey into the unknown. All of a sudden she gets first hand experience of what it is like to have to face the fact that the body is too occupied with the illness to function properly – especially at a time when it is needed to take her through this rollercoaster ride of trying to find a cure that will work. She also gets to see how confusing and contradictory medical advice can be and how little is done by conventional medicine to actually support the healing process. Apart from giving a very interesting and moving insight into the ups and downs a person has to go through at a time like this, the book also gives a very interesting (and perhaps revealing) insight into the reactions of a number of leading experts in the field of alternative medicine and therapy. Being an expert in the field herself, Achterberg is surrounded by well-known people in the field, both because they happen to be neighbours and close friends and because a number of people soon find out about her personal problems and offer their help and support. She becomes the focus and attention of numerous prayer groups and receives emails, letters, holy water, objects of special significance or blessed in one way or another. All of which she concludes has a positive effect on her healing process. Without being sarcastic, one could also describe the book as an "un-plugged version of New Age celebrities". It is very interesting to get such a direct insight into how many experts such as Larry Dossey, Carl Simonton and Michael Harman deal with a situation such as this when one of their friends is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The first thing that comes to mind is a sense of desperation – a lack or emptiness when it comes to putting things into a wider perspective. What seemed to be lacking was a closer link to a faith in a higher order, either in the form of conventional religion or a more personal relationship with God or a higher order. Not that the religious aspect was missing as such – it appears in a number of ways in such as holy water from Lourdes, prayers etc, but because it did not seem to play the role of a comforting and uniting higher force for the people involved, as perhaps could be expected when a person is faced with issues of life and death in this way. Perhaps this reaction was mainly due to the fact that I had just finished reading a book about Chinese Traditional Medicine which seemed to offer very much of the opposite pole. Perhaps this is a phenomena related mainly to life in California or New Age. But the overall impression gave a hint of children being lost and desperately grasping for straws. This is not said in a judgmental way. My reaction is more of shock and surprise. Surprise that conventional medicine had so little to offer. Their alternatives seemed very grim and hopeless, with a nuclear device that seemed absolutely lethal, as one alternative. But also surprise that these people even considered conventional medicine given their hopeless options and their own knowledge. And how rejecting treatment even for such experts seemed to cause a certain sense of guilt. Surprise at how far back many people seem to have moved into shamanic traditions and faith healing as an alternative. I was also surprised to notice that the idea of projection did not seem to come into the picture at all. Throughout her illness Achterberg received endless advice and information from people who dreamt about her, channelled information or used their intuition in other ways that they thought would be good for her. On a number of occasions Achterberg follows their advice even for direct ways of treating her illness. Strangely the least surprising of all was the fact that she managed to get through her illness and made a recovery, despite the medical prognosis. The book offers a very good, open and honest personal account of a very brave woman who has to deal with a very difficult situation in her life. In addition it also gives a very good insight into the honest version of a part of the New Age "elite" in America, which reassuringly shows that underneath it all we are all human and not very different from each other.