Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing (Paperback)

~ (Author) "As I say to people attending my workshops and my lectures: I am taking you into the world that exists "behind my eyes..." (more)
Key Phrases: energy anatomy, tribal chakra, symbolic sight, All Is One, Extreme Unction, Peace Pilgrim (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What sets Anatomy of the Spirit apart is Carolyn Myss's ability to blend diverse religious and spiritual beliefs into a succinct discussion of health and human anatomy. For example, when describing the seven energy fields of the human body, she fuses Christian sacraments with Hindu chakras and the Kabbalah's Tree of Life. Fortunately, Myss is a skilled writer as well as researcher, able to ground her extensive spiritual and religious discussions by using real-life stories and a tight writing style. Those who are squeamish with the notion of biography affecting biology will find this book a struggle (in one chapter, Myss links pancreatic cancer with a man's refusal to unburden his life and start fulfilling his dreams). Many, however, hail Myss for creating a valuable contribution to the ongoing exploration of spirituality and health. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

One of the hottest new voices in the alternative health/spirituality scene, Myss is a "medical intuitive" whose work with Dr. C. Norman Shealy resulted in their coauthored book, The Creation of Health. In this engaging volume, Myss describes our "spiritual anatomy" and how its dysfunctions affect the physical body. Going beyond the spirit/body connection, she presents a complete program for spiritual growth, drawing on concepts from three major religions. Linking the seven chakras of Hinduism to the seven Christian sacraments and the Jewish mystical Tree of Life, Myss details the struggles associated with each chakra and its correspondents. To Myss, our primary foundation, or first chakra, for example, corresponds to baptism and the mystical Jewish concept of Shekhinah. This chakra's energy, according to Myss, is concerned with our "tribe," be it our family, country or other group we identify with, and it activates our need for loyalty, honor and justice. Misplaced loyalties or conflicts will most likely manifest in the lower part of the body, in afflictions like lower back pain. The author intersperses her text with case studies and keeps her discussion close to real-life concerns. Her tone can be gratingly authoritative at times ("all human stress corresponds to a spiritual crisis"), and it's questionable whether the alleged correspondences are as firm as Myss posits. Still, there's wisdom here, in words that eschew New Age jargon and that make otherwise esoteric material accessible to a general readership. This book has breakout potential. One Spirit Book Club main selection; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1 edition (August 26, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609800140
• ISBN-13: 978-0609800140
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,646 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #3 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Authors, A-Z > Myss, Caroline
  #8 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Alternative Medicine > Healing
  #15 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Self-Help

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

208 of 222 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faith wihout walls, November 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing (Audio Cassette)

This book allows you to have faith without walls. The book Encounter with A Prophet removes the walls. I recommend both books.

91 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of spiritual matters....., August 23, 2002

By	Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

In the last part of ANATOMY OF THE SPIRIT, Caroline Myss unites her discussion of three belief systems (Roman Catholic Sacraments, Kabbalah Tree of Life, and Hindu Chakras) within the concept of living in the present moment. Many who have trod the spiritual path Myss describes and faced the Three Big Crises - absence of meaning and purpose; strange new fears; and devotion to something greater than one's self - will appreciate her final words. Suffering produces spiritual rewards.

Not everyone will appreciate Myss' book. I would like to send the audio version to my 87-year old aunt who is devoutly Roman Catholic, but I don't think she would like it. My Southern Baptist aunt would probably disown me. My daughter would appreciate it - but she's a fan of Bishop Pike. For a change, Myss has written a book older folks will appreciate more than younger ones.

I know something about the sacraments having been raised with them. I've also acquired a great deal of knowledge about the Chakras in the past 40 years (via reading and Hindu friends). I have studied the Kabbalah (it is far more complex than Myss' book indicates). Like Joseph Campbell whom she apparently see as a model, Myss sees a larger truth underlying religious structures and/or tribal systems of belief.

Myss is billed as an expert on energy medicine. In the early 1980s, I had the pleasure and privilege of being in Louis Hay's home. I can testify that "whatever your mind can conceive and believe it will achieve." Whenever I have an ailment, I whip out Hays' healing books (Myss cites one of them). Healing takes many forms. Doctors mostly facilitate the process or mess it up. The power of positive thinking, prayer, the laying on of hands, and laughter all work to heal the body-mind-spirit. What Myss shares is not new, but if you haven't heard about it elsewhere you can learn more here.

This is a good book. I've heard, read, and/or experienced most of what Myss describes so I can testify to the truthfulness of it. If you are ready to move beyond tribal boundaries and become whole this may be the book for you.

67 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Anatomy lessons., February 6, 2002

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Caroline Myss, Ph.D. is a medical intuitive and a specialist in energy medicine. Whenever she visits Boulder, she draws a big crowd, and her sold-out lecture last week promoting her current bestseller, SACRED CONTRACTS, was no exception. "According to energy medicine, we are all living history books," she writes in ANATOMY OF THE SPIRIT. "Our bodies contain our histories--every chapter, line, and verse of every event and relationship in our lives" (p. 40). She maintains, in other words, that as our lives unfold, our biography becomes our biology (p. 40).

In ANATOMY OF THE SPIRIT, Myss attempts to connect the dots between body and spirit by integrating the wisdom of several spiritual traditions, the Hindu chakras, the Christian sacraments, and the Kabbalah's Tree of Life. She draws from the ancient wisdom of these teachings to radically redefine spiritual and biological health, and to help us understand "what keeps us healthy, what makes us ill, and what helps us heal" (p. 67). The central premise of her book is that our past and present, personal and professional relationships, traumatic experiences and memories, beliefs and attitudes all become "encoded" in our biological anatomies, and then contribute to the formation of cell tissue, which generates energy reflecting our emotional strengths, weaknesses, hopes and fears (p. 34). Dr. Myss teaches us how to move through our wounds, rather than living in them (p. 60). While in her book she says that disease is the result of our negative emotions (p. 43), during her more recent Boulder lecture, Myss acknowledged she no longer believes this, and that this incorrect assertion has caused many to needlessly suffer, while trying in vain to identify the nonexistent negativity in their lives.

In her truly fascinating book, Myss reveals how we are simultaneously matter and spirit, and she encourages us to think about how matter and spirit interact, "what draws the spirit and life force out of our bodies, and how we can retrieve our spirits from the false gods of fear, anger, and attachments of the past" (p. 77). To those readers like me, who may be a bit skeptical of the anatomy lessons Myss offers here, she encourages us take from her book only what feels right to our heart and spirit, leaving the rest behind (p. 94).

G. Merritt