LUPUS NOVICE: Toward Self Healing [Paperback]

Laura Chester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1999

Recommended by Andrew Weil in Natural Health, Natural Medicine, Lupus Novice gives a moving account of the author's successful struggle with "incurable" SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), affecting mostly women. Ms. Chester shares the personal discoveries behind her recovery, and a meditation on what it means for a body to be "attacking itself." This enlarged edition updates her story and includes a foreword by the best-selling authority on immune-system disease: the author of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Dr. Jesse Stoff."Laura Chester has written a moving and significant book. On one level, she discusses her personal odyssey through the realm of a serious and inexplicable disease-its history, current cultural status, biology, symbolism, and the doctors of all persuasions who attempt to cure it. On another level, she speaks to the esoteric level of the disease, discussing the initiation into a deeper level of self and a journey through the unconscious and archetypal aspects of nature. On this level, she is an artist more than a patient, an individual who has the power to effect her cure."- Richard Grossinger, author of Planet Medicine

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Laura Chester has published many volumes of poetry, prose and non-fiction. Most recently, Holy Personal, looking for small private places of worship, was made available from Indiana University Press, and a selection of prose-poems, Sparks, was published by The Figures. Both books include extensive photographs by Donna DeMari. Station Hill Press released an updated version of Lupus Novice, an account of Chester's personal struggle and breakthrough with the auto-immune disease SLE, while Black Sparrow Press, published three of Chester's early books of fiction. Other novels include The Story of the Lake, Faber & Faber; and Kingdom Come, Creative Arts Book Company. Chester has edited four important literary anthologies, including Deep Down and The Unmade Bed. She is currently completing a fifth, Eros & Equus, a passion for the horse. Having grown up in Wisconsin, lived in Albuquerque, Paris, and Berkeley, she now travels between Patagonia, Arizona and the Berkshires of Massachusetts.Fo

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, Inc.; 2 Sub edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581770200
• ISBN-13: 978-1581770209
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #728,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Lupus
  • #54 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Rheumatic Diseases

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and insightful journey towards healing, January 17, 1998

By 

Carola Burroughs (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lupus Novice: Toward Self-Healing (Paperback)

I found this book by accident in a bookstore one day, and ended up on the floor reading the whole thing in one sitting. It is a compelling and insightful account of the author's journey towards healing from SLE, exploring various natural and conventional therapies, and eventually finding relief using anthroposophical medicine, a system somewhat like homeopathy developed by Rudolph Steiner. This also led me to investigate this form of medicine and the field of anthroposophy in general.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Endorsed by the Institute of Anti-Aging and Longevity, July 14, 2001

By 

Wesley V. Kikuchi (Carson City, Nevada United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LUPUS NOVICE: Toward Self Healing (Paperback)

Laura Chester is a gem. She writes and excellent journey of her issues with Lupus SLE. It is a wonderful insight to her soul and can help hundreds in dealing with this terrible disease. I think a big, big, big part of the diary is how she discribes her physician, Dr. Jesse Stoff. This medical doctor writes the forward to this amazing book and is mentioned many times on how he helped Laura understand this disease and what she had to go through to immune her immune function and left her body beat the disease. What Lupus patients have to understand is that Laura Chester's journey and experience is being true to herself on why the disease happened in the first place because of stress and imbalanced lifestyles and dealing with infection. All of these things are outlined in Dr. Jesse Stoff's two other books, The Prostate Miracle and Chronic Fatiuge Syndrome: The Hidden Epidemic. What's interesting in the updated version of Lupus Novice is that Laura doesn't even remember a lot of the pains she went through because she's on the road to recovery and that the past has nothing to do with her future of wellness, since it was her past issues in her life that caused the stress which lead to her disease. This is truely a fasinating book that I recommend at our Institute of Anti-Aging and Longevity to all our Lupus patients along with Dr. Stoff's other two books. In fact, the American Lupus Foundation, highly recommends Lupus Novice also to all the people with Lupus. Again, an outstanding book about, love, compassion, determination, self-actualization and witnessing to all those who suffer from lupus. Anyone interested in the protocals that Dr. Stoff applied to Laura Chester can email us at the Institute of Anti-Aging and Longevity... or call us at 1-800-878-6659 and we will be more than glad to put you on the road to recovery.

4.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps More Poetic Than Autobiographical, August 25, 2009

By 

jcappy (Raceville, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LUPUS NOVICE: Toward Self Healing (Paperback)

I think "Lupus Novice" is a best read for poetic, New Age (in this case, George Steiner) readers, but anyone with Lupus or any chronic illness should find it very worthwhile, insightful, and helpful.

This said, for a personal account, "Lupus Novice" seems strangely impersonal. The few interest rousing moments of personal revelation, tension, and criticism, are fairly quickly muted and/or never returned to. Also, I think the social and political dimension of modern chronic illnesses like Lupus, CFS, MS, Lyme, and so forth, all of which grow daily in number, might receive much more attention because they are so absent in the media.