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Some 850 years ago Hildegard von Bingen described in her visionary book about cosmic psychotherapy, the Book of Values in Life, thirty-five risk factors that can destroy humanity and life on earth, along with the thirty-five healing forces counteracting this possible catastrophe. Hildegard von Bingen, a Benedictine abbess, was admired as prophetissa teutonica, (German Prophet) by her contemporaries. In her visionary illuminations we see that everything is inseparably connected in the cosmic web of the universe. We also see that all of our deeds have a cosmic impact, either life-restoring or life-destroying. The universe is the target of our doing and reflects back the positive or negative energy into all creatures.
Hildegard foresees a time, where the universe will have to heal itself by way of natural catastrophes, because humanity has damaged and polluted the four life elements--fire, air, water and the earth. We are actually very clearly witnessing cosmic healing in the form of tornadoes, earthquakes, and flooding as a result of our progress-at-any-price mentality in Western society. Today's ecological collapse is the helplessness of our Western rationalism to understand life and the universe as one. In contrast to the mystical wisdom and knowledge of the East, Western science has in the past few centuries abandoned any spiritual dimension and is responsible for the environmental disaster plaguing this fragile planet. The growing awareness of nuclear and ecological threats to continued human existence brings into focus Hildegard's visions of God the Creator and the working of the universe as a unity. Hildegard's wisdom can heal the split between science and spirituality because it provides a synthesis of science and nature with religion. The illuminations by Hildegard of Bingen show the soul's journey through life in harmony with nature and in harmony with God, which we must hope will become mainstream thinking in the West in this new millennium.

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Today people all over the world experience health and well-being through physical fitness--sports, yoga, ta'i chi, kung fu, and dance, for example. Spiritual fitness also helps us experience health and well-being. It opens the window to an inner power that connects us with the energy of the entire universe and can help us understand our own nature so that we can live richer, happier, and healthier lives.
With the help of this book, we will see that almost all sicknesses are caused by the malfunction of the human soul and a spiritual blackout of the inner personality. Instead of fighting against the misery and evil by cutting away the sicknesses with surgery, chemical treatment, and radiation, we will see that all symptoms contain the message that something positive is hiding behind the evil. Using the negative energy behind the evil, we will learn to transform it into good, sickness into health, weakness into strength, and our enemies into our friends.
The power of this spiritual wisdom reveals the beneficial relationship between body and soul. The soul, in fact, controls the function of the body, including the heart, digestion, sexuality, and the power of the immune system. We will see how thirty-five spiritual risk factors suppress the immune system and how thirty-five spiritual healing forces can improve and strengthen the entire body. Through the wisdom of Hildegard of visionary work, we begin to understand the deeper nature of the human soul and its relationship with the human body, in particular the autonomic nervous system.
On the thirty-five vertebrae of the spinal cord, we can trace the thirty-five spiritual forces of the human soul to every organ in the body. This arrangement is simultaneously beneficial for diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of both body and soul. Through the manipulation of the areas left and right of the spinal cord, we can discover malfunctioning organs as well as the specific spiritual risk factors connected to the particular vertebrae. With this wisdom we understand that for a complete holistic healing, it is not enough to treat diseases solely on a physical level. Holistic healing always requires a search for the spiritual risk factors that caused the disease and the help of the corresponding spiritual healing factors for the soul in order to overcome sickness of body and soul. Any attempt to suppress only the symptoms leads inevitably to an armada of sicknesses and symptoms that are usually chronic and incurable. Ignorance of spiritual wisdom is very expensive for patients and beneficial only to the medical community and for the profit of the pharmaceutical industry. This book can help us acquire the spiritual wisdom and understanding to become personally responsible for ourselves and our sicknesses, so that we stay well and in good spirits.