Reinventing Medicine: Beyond Mind-Body to a New Era of Healing [Paperback]

Larry Dossey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 5, 2000

Larry Dossey forever changed our understanding of the healing process with his phenomenal New York Times bestseller, Healing Words. Now the man considered on of the pioneers of mind/body medicine provides the scientific and medical proof that the spiritual dimension works in therapeutic treatment, exploding the boundaries of the healing arts with his most powerful book yet.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Cue the theme song to the Twilight Zone: Research shows your plants won't grow as well when you're depressed as when you're happy. Praying for someone else will improve your own health, too. The growth of E. coli bacteria is inhibited when a group of people merely think about stopping the growth. And qi gong practitioners in San Francisco can kill cancer cells in other peoples' bodies--by willing the cells to die. These ideas surely sound ludicrous, but these and other similarly mindboggling studies have been commissioned and replicated by researchers at Harvard, Duke, McGill, and other esteemed universities.

Larry Dossey is known as the father of mind-body medicine and perhaps best known for his advocacy of the role of prayer in healing in 1995's bestselling Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. He admits that working on such seemingly impossible projects a few years ago would have ruined a researcher's career with "ATF," or "the anti-tenure factor." But things are changing. He wrote Reinventing Medicine to present proof that "the mind can literally change the external world" and how this "nonlocal mind" will change health care in the future. His argument for the existence of this nonlocal mind is as convincing as it is eloquently conveyed. Doubters, he says, merely need to examine their own dreams for proof this is true. When was the last time you had a conversation or found yourself in a situation you dreamed about the night before? Studies from as early as the 1960s "strongly suggest that dreams are an avenue of nonlocal communication between separate, distant persons."

Dossey's support of the nonlocal mind is sure to draw pooh-poohs from cynics, including M.D.s, but, he warns, health-care workers are bound to experience this force firsthand: "Doctors can experience their patients' symptoms nonlocally, and this can be unpleasant." He cites the example of psychiatrist Mona Lisa Shulz, a medical intuitive, who "began to grow increasingly uncomfortable, feeling hot and flushed," while speaking over the phone with a feverish patient. Dossey says this telesomatic event, extreme empathy, or whatever you want to call it, is dangerous, but that "empathic balance" is something that will be taught in medical schools in the future to ensure accurate diagnoses of ill patients. Dossey was one of the first vanguards of mind-body medicine, which is basically accepted as fact today; he's again presenting the future of medicine, as otherworldly as it seems. --Erica Jorgensen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Always in the vanguard, physician Dossey (Prayer Is Good Medicine, etc.) makes a fascinating case for the next revolution in medicine beyond the current era of mind-body healing. Rather than signaling an entirely new direction, he defines a larger, more humane vision based on incorporating advances in integrative medicine. His brief, persuasive work is bound to attract attention from the general public and medical professionals alike, especially in light of his pioneering work on the connection between prayer and healing. Rendering his argument in simple language and illustrating it with many individual stories as well as scientific studies, Dossey contends that we are entering an era of the "non-local mind"Athat consciousness can accomplish healing outside the confines of one's brain and body, influencing distant events, people and circumstances. He does not discount the efficacy of medical intervention so much as he anticipates an enlightened model of partnership between patient and healer. While some readers may resist the idea of prayer influencing such events as cell development, many will accept the more familiar examples involving animal behavior (e.g., pets traveling thousands of miles to reunite with their owners). Addressing such major conduits of nonlocal healing as dreams, prayer and being in "the zone," Dossey offers moving examples of human healing that seem inexplicable by other means. He is at his most eloquent in his concluding chapter on "Eternity Medicine," or the compassionate treatment of the dying. Agent, James Levine. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 271 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (September 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062516442
• ISBN-13: 978-0062516442
• Product Dimensions: 0.7 x 5.3 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Medicine & Psychology

More About the Author

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars See the world in a whole new way November 28, 1999

By Cynthia Sue Larson TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Have you ever suspected that healing requires something more than either an entirely body-based approach... or even a mind-body approach? Would you like to better understand how powerful prayer really is for healing? If so, you'll love Larry Dossey's book, "Reinventing Medicine", in which he describes this new era of non-local medicine. Dossey cites very convincing scientific studies that indicate healing can be achieved at a distance by directing loving thoughts, intentions and prayers to others -- even if they are not aware that these loving thoughts are being extended to them. Dossey's revolutionary book inspires us to consider the healing power of what he calls Eternity Medicine in our everyday lives right now. I get goose-bumps of excitement and joy each time I read this book, and give it my highest recommendation.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reinventing Our Minds May 11, 2000

By Charles Day

Format:Hardcover

Larry Dossey has a target tattooed on his chest - he has made himself vulnerable to a great deal of criticism by clearly stating that the human mind - consciousness - is a nonlocal phenomenon.

By this he means that the brain is not the mind or consciousness. Consciousness - our capacity to think, reflect, perceive - is connected with other minds, even the mind of God as we understand God. We can and do move beyond our bodies to touch and be touched by others. Our consciousness continues after the death of the body.

If this is true, and I believe, as Dossey does, it is, then we have the capacity to experience and connect with immense resources. In fact, Dossey emphasizes that this is already happening and has always been happening. The key is to accept this and move with it, to discipline ourselves and to seek the support and guidance of those who are already working effectively with consciousness.

Although this is not new, it is, nevertheless, very threatening to many, particularly medical and religious professionals who are not prepared to accept this reality. Some go so far as to say that if it were proven true beyond all doubt they would STILL not accept it!

Dossey has made himself a target for those who will not accept the truths about which he writes. He furthermore makes himself vulnerable to criticism by taking seriously those who have been castigated in the past, such as Mesmer (hypnotism) and faith healers. He distinguishes between outright con artists and those who have true gifts, but who use language which is not respectable among some scientist.

This is an exciting book which calls every being to mutual respect and watchful acceptance of the gifts of healing and support which surround us all the time.

Charles V. Day, Board Certified Chaplain

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dossey's Reinvention: Hope for Medicine's Future October 24, 1999

By Henry E. Dreher

Format:Hardcover

Larry Dossey has once again taken our understanding of the potential of a medicine of mind, body, spirit, and imagination to new levels. He's charted a course for medicine that honors intuition and human capabilities that transcend the old boundaries of biology, mind, and selfhood. He also honors quantitative scientific method as one way to glimpse the possibilities of a transpersonal medicine--what he calls Era III, helping us to recognize that there are rational ways to conceptualize that which seems to transcend the rational, ways to measure the affect of spirit on the body and on other sentient (and even non-sentient) beings, as well, through nonlocal consciousness. A penetrating, humanistic, transpersonal vision for a medicine we can only hope will fully come to pass.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A ringing appeal to recover the arts of dream healing December 29, 1999

By Robert Moss

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Larry Dossey's new book is a splendid, generous and inspiriting appeal to revive the ancient arts of dream healing. He focusses attention on open secrets that I believe will be central to our medicine - and our way of being in the world - in the twenty-first century: that mind is nonlocal, so we can be anywhere (quite literally) that we can picture; and that the body does not distinguish mental or emotional events (if deeply believed) from physical events, so we can heal ourselves - and others - through imagery. Best of all, he is fully alive to the ways in which dreams teach us what our bodies need to stay well, often us showing us possible problems long before physical symptoms manifest, and how our spontaneous dream imagery offer fresh and vital keys to self-healing and recovery. Larry Dossey is an exemplar of what the best doctors of the coming century will be - healers and teachers who operate with mind, body and spirit. He has given me inspiration on my own path of teaching and practicing dream healing, as reflected in my books CONSCIOUS DREAMING and DREAMGATES (and the forthcoming DREAMING TRUE). He gives all of us courage for the journey on the path of heart and soul. I hope he will find many readers in our medical community, because we urgently need this antidote to approaches that reduce the patient to a collection of body parts to be mended or sustained by pharmaceuticals and invasive surgery. We need to marry the best of our medical science to a way that honors the individual as a whole person and encourages her to ask for help from a deeper Source and bring all her spiritual resources into play. Larry Dossey shows us how.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful advocacy for "healing intent" October 12, 1999

By David C. Heilbron, Ph.D.

Format:Hardcover

This thoughtful, well-researched and well-written book focuses on two major ideas. The first is the theory that there is a universal consciousness, infinite in space and time, which the author calls "nonlocal mind." He reviews a wide range of past and current thought on this topic, as well as research studies that appear to illustrate various effects of nonlocal mind, such as action-at-a- distance, mind-to-mind communication, etc. He points out that, while no one knows how nonlocal mind works, the same is true of gravity. (Still, unlike gravity, there are as yet no quantitative "laws" describing the actions of nonlocal mind.) The second major idea is that healing and destruction of harmful cells may be achieved through prayer or healing intent, by oneself or by others. The author describes a number of clinical trials of intercessory prayer/healing intent (i.e. by others), either completed or in progress. However, the reviewer believes that a more systematic examination of such studies is needed, such as a meta-analysis, to avoid unconscious bias in selection of studies as well as the effects of "publication bias."

In conclusion, the author offers a benign vision of the future of medicine in which nonlocal methods (psychic perception of symptoms, healing intent) are seamlessly blended with more traditional approaches. While the possible abuses of these ideas are only minimally addressed, this is an impressive achievement and a useful overview of an increasingly important development in medical practice.