The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Shape Our Lives (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The long-awaited seminal book on this topic. A crowning achievement."
-Marc Ian Barasch, author of Healing Dreams

"Larry Dossey, one of our greatest medical sages and admitted informavore, takes us on a wonderful journey from non-local mind and consciousness to the power of understanding our abilities to have not only intuitive thoughts, but premonitions. Read it to feel fully awakened to a deeper understanding of your mind and a greater connection to the universal consciousness."
-Woodson Merrell, MD, Chairman Department of Integrative Medicine, Beth Israel Medical Center, NYC, and author with Kathleen Merrell of The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up Your Health, and Feel Ten Years Younger

"Dr. Larry Dossey is the world's leading expert in space-time mystery. In this compulsively readable, thoroughly researched work, you will be left with tantalizing questions. Can there be free will and premonitions both? What is the nature of time? Rarely does a book come along that keeps you on the edge of your seat and stimulates thought like this one. Don't miss it!"
-Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., Your Soul's Compass and Saying Yes to Change

"For anyone who is interested in knowing about the deeper meaning of our existence, this book is a must read. Once again, Larry, being the pioneer that he is, has written a classic."
-Deepak Chopra, MD, Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment

"In his crystal clear style, he explains why the paradoxical idea of knowing the future is no longer based on mere conjecture or fantastic stories, and why cultivating this startling ability is perhaps your most important birthright."
-Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences

"I think Larry Dossey is one of America's most important thinkers. When he talks, I listen; when he writes, I read. He presents compelling evidence that the power of the mind is so much greater than we had previously realized."
-Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

"This wonderful book brings reason and wisdom to bear on experiences that no one understands, yet which really happen. Thank goodness that Dr Larry Dossey is not afraid to wrestle with a subject that most scientists prefer to ignore, but which tells us that there is more to life and mind than our philosophies have dreamed of."
-Rupert Sheldrake, biologist and author

"This book will help to open minds and lead to an acceptance of what we experience while overcoming our being limited by what we believe. I know from personal experience, in my life and work, that the future is unconsciously prepared and known and, therefore, can be revealed through dreams and drawings and I have the evidence from my practice to prove it."
-Bernie Siegel, MD, Love, Medicine & Miracles and 365 Prescriptions For Living

Product Description

The doctor-and bestselling author-who first demonstrated the healing effects of prayer now offers an unprecedented look at the science of premonitions.

When Larry Dossey was in his first year of medical practice, he experienced a week of premonitions about patients, all of which came true. He had never had them before; they seemed to have come out of left field. After the sensations stopped, writes Dossey in The Power of Premonitions, "It was as if the universe, having delivered a message, hung up the phone. It was now my job to make sense of it-which I try to do in this book."

The four parts of The Power of Premonitions take readers through documented cases of premonitions, including a remarkable instance when an entire Nebraska community skipped church the very day it exploded; an examination of recent science studying what is known as "presentiment"; a discussion of what it all means to daily life; and practical, field-tested techniques for inviting premonitions.

Just as he did in Healing Words, the groundbreaking book that propelled Dossey into the public consciousness, in this compelling new book Dossey uses cutting-edge science to prove the value of what had long been considered spiritual mumbo-jumbo. This is a book for the skeptical mind, but it's also for the believer's heart-because its author possesses the rare gift of having both.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1 edition (April 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525951164
• ISBN-13: 978-0525951162
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,747 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Idea of Premonitions Drives Me Nuts, But..., May 4, 2009

By	Charles T. Tart (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Although a substantial part of my career as a psychologist has been devoted to parapsychological matters for more than 50 years, one part of the field has always been especially troublesome to me, the idea that people sometimes get information about the future, premonitions, precognitions, when there is no reasonable possibility of them getting it, given what we know about the nature of the physical world.

I am thoroughly acculturated, like practically everyone, to believe that the past is gone, the future is not yet here, only the present moment is real, so time marches on. Sure, we can predict probable things - the sun will rise tomorrow - or things we know the causal mechanism of - the car will stop running soon if I don't put more gasoline in the tank. But then you can't help but hear stories on the order of "I dreamed this really improbable set of events that resulted in my being run down by a green car on such-and-such a street, although I don't usually go there, and sure enough this green car suddenly dashed around the corner and would have killed me if I hadn't been forewarned by the dream and so alert enough to jump back."

The devoted materialist has no trouble with such stories, banishing them with words like "coincidence." In Dossey's new book he mentions the medical version of this: a story that indicates something you don't believe in is an "anecdote," one that confirms your beliefs is a "careful case history."

In my recent book The End of Materialism, out just a month before this new Dossey book that I want to praise, I am forced to include precognition with what I call the Big Five psi phenomena, the ones that have been so thoroughly and rigorously tested that I see no reasonable doubt that they exist (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis and psychic healing). Yet while I include precognition there because there is so much evidence for it in rigorous lab studies, in point of fact I find the idea of knowing the future so incomprehensible that I don't really think about it. When I discovered massive precognition effects had sneaked into my own laboratory data, e.g., I found I wasn't even psychologically "defended" against the idea, premonitions were just too far out to worry about.

Now Larry Dossey, well-known physician, author and alternative medicine expert, has devoted a whole book to all aspects of premonitions, and I'm going to have to think about it. Indeed I've told Dossey that his book captured me. I have very little time for reading, I'm sent dozens of books people want me to read and that, given my interests, I would like to read, but never get time for. The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Shape Our Lives is so readable and fascinating, though, that I read the first 190 pages continuously and have taken it on my camping vacation with me to finish. It's too good! Spontaneous cases from real life, lab experiments, connections with the latest understanding of brain functioning, and, especially important, why it would be useful to develop our premonitory abilities, are all covered. I can't recommend it highly enough!

Charles T. Tart, PhD

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ever Wish You Could Predict Next Week's Lotto Numbers?, May 1, 2009

By	Kelly J. Jadon "Founder: www.BasilAndSpice.com" (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

[...]
Author & Book Views On A Healthy Life!

A FirstLook Review: The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing The Future Can Shape Our Lives (Dutton/ Apr 2009) by Larry Dossey, M.D.


Ever wish you could predict the numbers in next week's lotto pick? Or have you had a dream that later came true? Believe it or not, Larry Dossey says that these things have happened. It's called premonition--a forewarning of an event yet to occur, also known as first sight or mindsight.

Premonition has been around a long time, dating back in history to the ancient Greeks, the native Americans, and to the Hebrew people. Though most of us don't discuss such mystical experiences openly, odds are you've experienced this phenomena yourself.

An interesting story from my own family: Not long ago my father was dying from pancreatic cancer, in his home, under hospice's care. My extended family, including my father's brother, sat together just outside on the home's lanai. During this emotional time, my uncle related a very incredible story about a dream he'd had in 1995 at his home in Michigan.

In the dream my uncle saw a motorcycle accident, and laying face down on the side of a highway was my father, the motorcycle severed in half. My uncle raised his eyes to another person standing on the side, wagging his finger at my father's prone body--it was my grandfather who had passed away in the 1970's.

My uncle was alarmed by the dream he said, but the only comforting factor was the motorcycle in the dream--a Honda Goldwing. He knew that Dad owned another type of bike.

Nonetheless, my uncle phoned my dad, just to "Say Hi." At the end of the conversation, Dad cheerfully asked his brother, "By the way, did I tell you that I bought a Honda Goldwing?" Reluctantly, my uncle ignored his premonition and said nothing about it, thinking that he might sound a little nuts.

A few months later, my dad lost his leg in a motorcycle accident on the side of I-95 under an overpass while avoiding the rain. He should have died three times that day, but unbelievable circumstances protected him. Seconds before the accident occurred, Dad thought, "Gee I should get over some more, before I get hit."

Larry Dossey, M.D. is the award-winning author of several books. He has lectured at such major medical schools as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and the Mayo Clinic. Dossey is an international advocate for the role of the mind in health and the role of spirituality in healthcare.

Larry Dossey shows through The Power of Premonitions how we all possess the innate capability of tapping into our possible future whether we like it or not.

In his book, Dossey:

* Describes cases of actual instances of premonitions: the Titantic, the Aberfan disaster, Harriet Tubman, Beatrice Nebraska, September 11, 2001 (9/11)
* Examines "recent contributions of modern technology to this science: John L. Petersen at The Arlington Institute (government intelligence), James C. Carpenter of the Rhine Research Center, Dean Radin--psi researcher
* Explores the Why? What? And How? Of typical questions people have regarding premonitions: Why are premonitions not completely accurate? What is the purpose of symbolism in dreams? Why do we repress our hunches, foreboding, and intuition?
* Explains the importance and dangers of them: focuses on the importance of belief on this issue, defines actions to enhance premonition
* Examines the "impact of premonitions on how we see the world." Time for us flows in one direction, not back into the past or jumping into the future; therefore, it is difficult to understand how premonition could actually exist. Delves into touchy points here with discussions of premonition and physics, laws of nature, free will, and consciousness.

The Power of Premonitions is really a scientifically based read for the lay person. Dr. Dossey includes several pages of notes and references backing up his research. Will you read the book and explore the power of understanding forewarning? The new publication is fascinating reading!

5 Stars

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back to the future..., May 18, 2009

By	Steven Cain (Temporal Quantum Pocket) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

"O, that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!" Julius Caesar, Act V, Scene I.

Time and other thieves... The good Doctor has unleashed an outstanding contribution to our attempts to understand the chaos of being, and the very nature of time itself.

In a work that manages to be both deeply scholarly and highly entertaining, Dr. Dossey has fashioned a mosaic of strange bedfellows that will at the very least help us to start asking the right questions.

As expected, the book is a masterpiece of research, supported by acres of notes and references, dealing with numerous core topics, such as the block universe, chaos, entropy, repression and a look into the paradox-drenched quantum arena as a whole.

While the case examples are fascinating and well chosen, the book also looks into cases of people successfully acting on premonitions, and the rituals of some cultures whereby destructive dreamed premonitions might be negated and dark outcomes averted.

For me, the book's crowning magic lies in the closing sections, in which Larry Dossey cites examples of how mystery and embracing the unknown can be good for our psychological and physical wellbeing. We do indeed seem to need just enough chaos and uncertainty in our lives. In the same way, one of the theories about reincarnation is that we are not supposed to remember details of our previous lives, lest it bias our thoughts and actions in our current life.

There's an allegorical song by Ani DiFranco called Little Plastic Castle, in which she sings...

"They say goldfish have no memory
I guess their lives are much like mine
And the little plastic castle
Is a surprise every time..."

Good job, given the dang size of the bowl...

Dr. Dossey takes the unusual and insightful step of asking the reader whether they want to invite premonitions into their consciousness, given the responsibility that may come with it. This dilemma was beautifully captured in the Garth Brooks classic, The Dance.

"Hey who's to say, you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance..."

Live with passion.

Steven Cain (Sirius Moonlight, One Star Awake)