Customer Reviews

Miracles of Mind: Psychic Abilities and Healing Connections

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This hybrid work covers the phenomenon of spiritual healing from both a scientific (Rusell's) and a personal/subjective (Katra's) experience. The scientific part of the book will not convince anyone who is still in denial about the existence of psi phenomena, as it doesn't discuss hard statistical data and parapsychological methodology. If that is what you are looking for, read Radin's "The Conscious Universe" instead. However, for the reader who has accepted the reality of psi phenomena, but wants to learn more, it gives a good introduction to the recent history of parapsychological research, and to what this research has taught us about the factors that affect psi performance.

For me however, the highlight of the book is Katra's part. Her deeply personal, moving account of healing people through spiritual means has an immensely uplifting quality, and it is because of that that I particularly recommended this book to people who are suffering from a chronic illness. This might help them to keep up hope, or to regain it if lost.

"There is no doubt," write the authors, "that we have contact with the future in a way that shows unequivocally that we misunderstand our relationship to the dimension of time." There it is -- the turning point for the entire ballet of this stunning book. Thank you, Russell Targ and Jane Katra for bringing between these covers the stories of your professional lives and the pas de deux of such different approaches -- cutting-edge physics research and spiritual healing. It is a brave and beautiful book. Message to those who would disparage this book: first educate yourselves a little bit about quantum physics. Then come back and read it again with all your heart.

Russell Targ shares his personal experiences with remote-viewing experiments at Stanford Research Institute, and includes fascinating photos and sketches that show the amazing accuracy remote viewers have frequently demonstrated. Jane Katya shares her personal experiences with healing touch, and how she came to work in the field of healing using Therapeutic Touch. Targ and Katya gracefully take the reader from their real-life stories to the current physical theories which can best explain non-local healing and viewing. This book is spell-binding, since it so carefully examines seemingly inexplicable phenomena from a very down-to-Earth point of view. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in enriching their lives through remote viewing and healing.

We hear that the next big leap for humans will be to integrate science and spirit. This pioneering work is a worthwhile and original effort in that direction. It is flawed in some avoidable ways, some unavoidable in any pioneering endeavor.

This is a serious but relaxed work on psi and human potential. Targ discusses the un-glamorous experimental evidence for psi, and illustrates in reasonable detail why psi is to be understood rather than believed or treated as subject to faith. His view is non-religious, suggesting that we can know our divinity, and that it is not an exotic property, but a mundane one. He discusses government-funded work recently declassified. Most interesting are his impressions on the 20th century uses of psi and consequent clues about its actual nature.

Katra chronicles her development as a healer; she differentiates between psychic/energy healing and spiritual (but not religious) healing (based on the non-locality concept, and making oneself a transmitter). This is fascinating, and again, moves our understanding forward in ways that the usual, glowing, New Age testimonials generally do not.

Targ and Katra undertook the difficult task of co-authoring on the basis of common, but highly individual experiences with psi. Their experiences converged in healing Targ's illness, a significant basis for joint authorship, but did not necessarily a guarantee of editorial success.

Overall, the excellent content could have been more accessible with a different title, better organization and better development of Katra's material. The title, while attractive to New Age audiences, undermines the book; the word 'miracle' has been cheapened lately, now suggesting magic. The authors work hard to explain that psi and healing are not magical. Targ might have done better to rethink references to his old hobby, performing magic tricks. It brought to mind The Amazing Randi (sp?), that self-proclaimed psi debunker/magician. This confused matters a bit.

Finally, the work is not quite synthesized yet, in other words, we are still reading two separate books in the same binding, although the serial chapter organization suggests otherwise. The separateness of Katra and Targ is striking throughout, in spite of organizational attempts to suggest their convergence/"non-locality". And sprinkling the two voices throughout the text as "I (Russell)" and "I (Jane)" distracts and fragments when the goal is integration. The same goes for Katra's chapter sub-headings. Her case studies and observations needed more fleshing out; they seemed less developed than Targ's sections. Why not arrange the work as three sets of chapters (or any other organizational device) instead of a single series? The authors' experiences are sufficiently distinct as to merit clearly separate treatment, with a third section devoted to more completely integrated reflections by both authors, spoken as one.

This book is a big disappointment. It's a rehash of psychic research that has been discussed before by better writers. The rub is that these two writers throw in claims about spirituality and healing. Targ claims he was miraculously cured of cancer, but dodges the question of whether he was sick or just misdiagnosed. That offends those of us who have the disease and are dealing with it, not exploiting it. Misdiagnosis is a common problem and "miracle cures" are often the result of proper re-testing. I want proof of miraculous healing, not a silly claim that a little jogging and a little prayer equals a miracle. The authors imply that only those who are not spiritual get sick and die. Katra says she's a healer, but her not very original new age ideas amount to trite advice to think positive. How spiritual is it to exploit sick people by holding out false hope and claims of miracles to sell a book? Look for God and truth elsewhere. One star because there is no lower rating.

Andrea Hope

Even though I consider myself to be an open minded person with a serious interest in healing, this book did not convince me to take its subject seriously. After the smoke cleared, there was nothing for me to hold on to besides a lot of mumbo jumbo and factual sleight of hand. When a man claims to have been miraculously healed of cancer, he should be able to document his claim with hard facts, including x-rays, medical tests, medical testimonials by qualified professionals familiar with the case and the like. Instead, these authors say only that they don't know if Targ's original diagnosis, later not confirmed, was accurate. They brush by the main point but can't avoid its impact for rational people. It is not a great jumping off point for a book that has such pretentions of spirituality, but sadly misses the mark in that ambition as well.

Psychic Healing Is more Interaction than Operation
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change!
We can change material things by operating on them, but to change people, we employ an interaction with them. One of our basic defining assumptions about humans is that we have choice. It's a weak assumption, one that is easily threatened by the specter of ESP.
We assume our minds to be our personal, private castle, free from all uninvited intrusions. An unexpected experience with telepathy, however, especially the first time, often elicits the reaction, "it was creepy." ESP calls personal boundaries into question. Whether or not the acceptance into society of ESP will be a blessing or a curse depends upon how we will integrate the crisis in boundaries ESP will bring.
It is a hopeful sign when the technological advances in ESP merge with developments in spiritual awareness to produce an enlightened approach to things psychic. A new book, Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing (New World Library) represents such a merger. The first author, Russell Targ, is a physicist and the foremost pioneer in research on remote viewing. His work has made it commonplace among consciousness workers to assume that your mind has a "nonlocal" dimension that enables it to interact with things, events and persons in other times and places. The second author, Jane Katra is a public health educator with a special gift for spiritual healing. When Targ developed cancer, he met Katra who shared with him her skills at "immune system coaching." Thus Katra introduced Targ to spiritual aspects of the nonlocal mind, such as prayer. In this book they each tell the story of their own individual research, and then explain how their two fields interact, providing a spiritual perspective on ESP and a psychic explanation for spiritual healing. It is an extraordinary synthesis of scientific research with spiritual wisdom.
We find it important to spiritualize psychic ability because of its seemingly awesome power. For example, when we prepare for even a mild mannered psychic experience, such as meditation, we regularly surround ourselves with protective light. This ritual suggests we perceive the possibilities of danger in sitting alone with ourselves. When ESP is acknowledged, are you ever alone with yourself?
Targ's research shows that psychic abilities can be used for spying. Furthermore, Russian research shows that one person can send telepathic suggestions of strangulation to another person and cause choking. It would appear that ESP can be used for immoral purposes. So it would seem that we need spirituality to shape the use of psychic abilities toward ethical ends. Katra's work in healing others seems like such a positive application. But a surprising paradox enters the picture.
Katra distinguishes spiritual healing from psychic healing. It is a difference in world views, in paradigms. "In psychic healing, the healer transposes intuitive impressions into thoughts and specific healing actions to remedy a perceived problem in a patient's body. In spiritual healing, ...the spiritual healer maintains his or her awareness in a nonlocal state of unity consciousness throughout the healing session." She also distinguishes spiritual healing from any kind of telepathic suggestion because she does not involve herself in any intent that the patient get well, so that no persuasion is involved. Rather, she enters a unitive state of consciousness while feeling merged with the patient. In effect she invites the patient, or offers the opportunity for the patient, to come along with her into God awareness, and then the patient experiences his or her own "self healing" ability in that unitive (God) awareness.
It would seem that psychic healing comes out of the paradigm of power. One person with special powers operates on another person. The operation could be done against the person's will, and thus ethical standards are required. Spiritual healing arises from a paradigm of love. It is an interaction with a person and involves the patient's choice to transcend ego consciousness to merge with "the community of spirit.". Although psychic ability is involved in this healing process (they propose that a psychic resonance enables the patient to emulate the healer's awareness), developing psychic ability is downplayed. Entering the state of consciousness of oneness both reveals the latent psychic ability and at the same time makes it less an object of desire. The consciousness of oneness seems to be both the psychic gift and the healing fruit.
The fact of the matter is that psychic abilities do not change the landscape of spirituality, they only illuminate it. Maybe the stereotype of psychic ability can tempt someone to pursue further the illusion of operating on personal power, or to create a shield against an abuse of such power. On the other hand, a deeper understanding of psychic ability may promote more of a motivation to learn how to live interactively the life of interconnectedness. [...]

I was fascinated and pleased to see how a scientist opens his mind and recognizes what is called the psychic reality which has been expressed by mystics over the centuries.

I am honored to find a book that exceptionally brings together current statistically data in realistic and understandable terms. It does due diligence to the topics discussed. Whereas most books are informational only, this book becomes an experiential tool to the sceptic that says, "Think on these things, and discover who you really are and what you are really capable of!" Hats off to pioneering leaders in the developement of spiritual potential. It is good to know we are that. And good to know that we are always, "More than that!" Cyberphysiology at it's finest, as Mind, Body, Spirit are made one.

Thank you Jane And Russell for an exceptional book. The area's dealing with healing were most healing for me. I have read much on healing and spirituality and this book ranks very very high on my list.