Customer Reviews

Are You Getting Enlightened or Losing Your Mind?: A Spiritual Program for Mental Fitness

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I enjoyed reading this book because certain spiritual experiences have happened to me in the past year that confused me. I was glad to read that Dr. Gersten had a name for what happened to me. I agree with his view of God and how different people are on different levels and that determines the form of God we worship. I recommend this book for those people who have had or have heard about an enlightened experience. After reading this book it showed how in the dark as Westerners we are on this subject and how other parts of the world it is much more common.

Dr. Gersten will probably change the lives of many people with this book, he's already changed mine. Nothing in self-help, spiritual psychology or alternative medicine that I have read even comes close. After reading the rehashed clichés of so many "empowerment" books, the idea that you can be a millionaire once you get empowered gets really old if you know what I mean. I was relieved to find new and exciting information I could actually use (check out his explanation of mantra meditation, you'll love it). I have never seen an angel myself, but if I thought I had, this book would be comforting. The author gets into some very cool nitty gritty stories that illustrate how to figure out if you are in spiritual crisis or just need to go on medication. For those who are on medication, you might want to read this to find out if your doctor is trying to medicate away real miracles. If you don't know whether you are seeing real angels or have an over active imagination this book tells you how to tell. Great miracle stories too.

As a psychologist who has always defined "psychiatrist" as an M.D. who practices psychology without a license, I was taken by surprise by this book. He actually knows the field of psychology and the field of parapsychology too! His underlying attitude is the most surprising, and compelling, part. Although he self-discloses several personal non-ordinary experiences, he's not selling a "spiritual" or "mystical" or "esoteric" worldview, he's just allowing for possibilities commonly associated with those worldviews, respecting people who have had experiences commonly associated with those worldviews, and offering them some very sensible suggestions. As a person, Gersten meets a criterion for maturity that resonates for me -- the ability to live comfortably with the ambiguity that surrounds us [homo sapiens] in our adolescence as a thinking species. This means that he has not collapsed into PREMATURE CERTAINTY about some unverified and currently unverifiable theory or doctrine, as too many people, including scientists and religionists, are wont to do.

This book is great for those who want to understand a more "spiritual" side to mental illness. It was one of the first books I read to help me go down a path of understanding healing in a new way. I think we often times like to slap lables on or illness, give them drugs, and try to forget about them. This book can help you go discover a new way of understanding mental illness.

This book, like most of Larry Dossey's books, is simply a retread of the most familiar elements of feel-good New Age pablum. He defines "spiritual experiences" so broadly that basically any pleasant, quiet moment (i.e., a relaxing cup of coffee, a child's smile) is artifically imbued with "spiritual" qualities. A waste of time.