The Downside of Positive Thinking

Compulsive positivity à la Rhonda Byrne (The Secret) is a big fat downer, argues Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-Sided)  

By ANNA OLSON 

Rhonda Byrne could be called the “queen of positive thinking,” with sales of The Secret (DVD and book), The Power, and now The Magic reaching into the stratosphere, making Byrne one wealthy woman.    

The Secret (Simon & Schuster, 2006) started the gravy train rolling. Claiming to have discovered an age-old secret, the law of attraction, it hooked millions with its "yes you can;  think positive and the world is yours" mantra. 

The law of attraction says that like attracts like. If you think positive thoughts, you’ll attract positive people, abundance and power. Vice versa for negative thoughts.

The Power (Atria Books, 2010) came along to tell us about the power of love. Each page beautifully ornamented, it exudes love and happiness, success and fulfillment, power and glory. Still aligned with the law of attraction, Byrne emphasizes that love is everything, the be all and end all, the alpha and omega, the one emotion (real or forced) that will get you everything you want.

“Without exception, every person who has a great life used love to achieve it. The power to have all the positive and good things in life is love!” Byrne’s definition of a great life is having "power over your health, your wealth, your career, your relationships, and every area of your life.” 

It all starts with imagination, Byrne says. “History has proven that those who dare to imagine the impossible are the ones who break all human limitations.” She says we need to imagine what we want, picture it in our minds in detail; then feel love for what we’re imagining. We must see ourselves mentally receive the item, person or position, pretending that we already have what we desire and “never deviate from that state of being.”

Now we are graced with The Magic (Atria Books, 2012). Byrne has rewritten a passage from the Gospel of Matthew to include gratitude.

"Whoever has gratitude will be given more, and he or she will have an abundance. Whoever does not have gratitude, even what he or she has will be taken from him or her."

What sets The Magic apart from The Secret and The Power, is the inclusion of 28 days of exercises to get you going on the road to success. You'll learn to be grateful for what you have now and in the past (12 days), for what you want in the future (10 days), and for your ability to help others, dissolve problems and improve any negative situation (6 days).

If you are a business owner, take note that the value of your business will increase or decrease according to your gratitude. According to Byrne, "It is when business owners stop being grateful and replace gratitude with worry that their business spirals downward." 

Fantasize or analyze – or both

You can read the gospel according to Rhonda Byrne in two ways. The first way is to pretend the books are fairy tales. Float through the words, letting images spark your imagination or highlight a problem area in your life. Does anything inspire you? Anything you feel like trying? How can you give and receive more love? Can you increase your attitude of gratitude?

The second way is to take a critical look at Byrne's concepts – and at Byrne herself. 

Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, two experts who were originally part of The Secret film, clashed with Byrne when they asked that two cautions be included. The first one, Gay recounted in a Huffington Post blog, is that “unless you combine the law of attraction with impeccable integrity, you can attract a peck of troubles along with anything positive that comes your way.” The Hendrickses also wanted to point out the “upper limit problem,” which Gay describes as “the tendency to sabotage yourself when you experience a rapid upsurge in success.” Why, you may ask? “If you haven't built a solid foundation of integrity under you,” Gay explains, “a rapid upturn in your fortunes can bring forth old self-esteem issues that cause you to bring yourself back down to your more familiar lower level of success.”

At one point, the Hendrickses realized that Byrne did not want anything negative in The Secret; it was to be a totally positive cheerleading effort with no pitfalls acknowledged. Asking that their interview footage not be used in the DVD, the Hendrickses bowed out.

Validating the “peck of troubles” concept, Drew Herriot (director of The Secret) and Dan Hollings (The Secret's Internet marketing guru) sued Byrne for breach of a verbal contract when she refused to share the mega profits of The Secret (one source suggests $300,000,000 in sales in the first nine months). Although Herriot lost his court case, Hollings settled out of court. 

It's a puzzle: Byrne has refused media requests for interviews about The Power and The Magic. Could it be she doesn’t want to deal with questions about The Secret lawsuits?  

Nor has Byrne commented on these lawsuits – at least nothing I've been able to find. But in The Power, she claims: “If you feel you have done something that wasn’t right, understand that your realization and acceptance of it is absolution for the law of attraction.” Some would argue that apologizing and making amends would be a more sincere way of redressing a wrong.

Also problematic is that Byrne appears to be using the law of attraction to encourage consumerism. Her emphasis is on having everything you want, rather than focusing on character development or learning to live simply. In The Power, she maintains “there is no lack anywhere in the universe.” Those who worry about vanishing species or diminishing resources are worrying needlessly. According to Byrne, “Quantum physics tell [sic] us there are infinite planet Earths and infinite universes that exist, and we move from one reality of planet Earth and a universe to another, every fraction of a second. This is the real world emerging through science.” This dubious take on quantum physics is Byrne's proof we can consume all we want.    

“Bright-Sided” shows the dark side of positive thinking 

In Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America (Picador, 2009), we learn that respected intellectual Barbara Ehrenreich, an author with 16 books to her credit, had a jarringly personal introduction to the world of positive thinking. During a routine check-up, her doctor found a lump in her breast that proved to be malignant. Ehrenreich descended into a maelstrom of panic, confusion and painful medical procedures. Not trusting alternative medicine, she surrendered to the mainstream modalities of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. 

To her surprise, Ehrenreich found that “not everyone views the disease with horror and dread.” Instead, positive thinking and acquiring the pink-ribboned accessories were de rigueur. She noted that there was very little anger, no discussion of possible environmental causes and no criticism of painful treatments. “Positive thinking seems to be mandatory in the breast cancer world,” Ehrenreich notes, “to the point that unhappiness requires a kind of apology.” 

As an experiment, Ehrenreich posted on a cancer message board under the heading "Angry." In it, she complained about the debilitating effects of chemotherapy, recalcitrant insurance companies, environmental carcinogens and the "sappy pink ribbons." She received "mostly a chorus of rebukes."

Trust Ehrenreich not to swallow this positivity pressure without fighting back. She threw herself into learning the history and ramifications of what she calls the “virus” of positive thinking. The result is an eye-opening treatise that will leave the reader in awe of the damage that can be done by a philosophy that on the surface appears as wholesome as a scrubbed and smiling child.

From positivity bubbles to empathy deficits  

Let’s start with the housing bubble in the U.S. with its  resultant stock market crash and worldwide recession. Ehrenreich details how the once sober financial sector hired motivational speakers and coaches to fire up management and employees. Exuberance was rewarded, caution discouraged. One financial expert said, “Anybody who voiced negativity was thrown out.” Some finance companies assumed daredevil debt-to-asset ratios of 30 to 1 in their underwriting of subprime mortgages, confident that positive thinking would keep them afloat. 

“Pumped up by paid motivators and divinely inspired CEOs,” says Ehrenreich, “American business entered the midyears of the decade [2000s] at a manic peak of delusional expectations, extending to the highest levels of leadership.” One financial expert told Ehrenreich that the idea that you can control the world with your thoughts went “viral” in corporate America.

Ehrenreich cites political historian Kevin Phillips, author of Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, making a clear connection between positive-thinking euphoria and the subprime mortgage crisis. Philips “indicts prosperity preachers Osteen, T.D. James, and Credo Dollar, along with The Secret author Rhonda Byrne.” Another writer blames religious preachers who helped low-income people fool themselves into believing “God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and bless me with my first house.”

According to Ehrenreich, one danger of compulsive positivity is an “empathy deficit.”  As an example, she quotes Byrne’s callous response to hearing about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 200,000 people: “Citing the law of attraction, [Byrne] stated that disasters like tsunamis can happen only to people who are ‘on the same frequency as the event.’” 

One of the dictums of positive thinking is to rid your life of negative people. Even if the other person may be going through a rough patch and need a helping hand – out they go. Or the negativity could be in a child, co-worker or boss – someone difficult to eject, Ehrenreich points out.

She gives very little advice in Bright-Sided, but here, Ehrenreich responds to the delete-negative-people attitude: “The challenge of family life, or group life of any kind, is to keep gauging the moods of others, accommodating to their insights, and offering comfort when needed.” 

On the subject of manipulative positive thinking in general, Ehrenreich offers a down-to-earth alternative: “One could think of other possible means of self-improvement – through education, for example, to acquire new ‘hard’ skills, or by working for social changes that would benefit all.”

                         * * *** * *

Positive thinking and the law of attraction are valid concepts, and understanding them can enhance our lives. But if the principles are used for selfish reasons or to manipulate others, damage can occur, lives can be hurt. 

I agree with Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks about the "upper limit problem" pulling us down when we attempt to force our thoughts to be strictly positive. Results may appear successful at first, but the underlying resistance usually rears up to sabotage us. I think positive thinking efforts should be balanced with an attempt to be squeaky-clean ethical – and to deal with negative feelings and attitudes, rather than just repressing them with forced positivity.

It’s a fascinating juxtaposition: the sweet, delicious fantasy of Rhonda Byrne’s “change your thinking, change your life” versus Barbara Ehrenreich’s sober “face your reality and deal with it." The Secret/The Power/The Magic – and Bright-Sided; they are worlds apart. Compare and enjoy the contrast. 

Anna Olson (annols@mts.net) is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor. 

    

John of God (and I) Visit Toronto

By Anna Olson

It wasn’t my idea to go to the John of God event in Toronto, the middle of March of 2013. The push to go started when I was having a Craniosacral Therapy session with Tanis, my therapist for four years. I have a spirit guide who often appears to add her energy and to give messages for me. This time, she told Tanis to tell me about John of God.

When I got home, I looked him up on the Internet and found that the 68-year-old Brazilian healer (spirit entities work through him) was going to be in Toronto, March 15 to 17. Too bad, I thought. I can’t go because I’ll be speaking at a conference that weekend.

Then I looked up the conference website and found the speaker page. There I was, my picture and my write-up. As I read my blurb, the type gradually melted off the screen until there was nothing left but my picture. What?! I scrolled up and everyone else’s material was there. I scrolled down and ditto. Back to my spot – there’s my picture but no write-up. Oh, I think I’m supposed to go to Toronto, was my painful realization.

I wrestled with the decision for two days. I was keen on talking at the conference, already planning my speech, and I was annoyed at this interference in my life. But what won out was the appreciation for the spirit guidance I have had in the past. I have learned to trust that good things happen when I follow it, often life-changing in the affirmative. So I phoned the organizer of the conference to explain my dilemma, and scrambled to get ready for TO.

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre 

You can spot the John of God attendees; they are a moving sea of white because the organizers asked everyone to dress in white. Some women are dressed in layers of filmy white: billowing skirts, lacy shawls and white shoes. The “fancy” men are in Nehru-type shirts and white slacks. These are people who enjoy dressing up and like the challenge of doing it in all white. Others have a “cobbled together” look (my type). It’s as if they’re saying, “I’m not spending any more money. This is what I have in my closet and it will have to do.” Some are rebels, wearing cream and beige, as if that’s close enough to white. One fellow had on a cream-with-black-stripes pullover. Those black stripes really stood out. No one else rebelled to that extent.

I was tempted to wear a silky purple tank top under a white blouse with white slacks but I didn’t have the nerve. It was an interesting exercise deciding what to wear: do I dare rebel against the wear-white order or do I submit to authority and wear what they tell me to? I submitted – but my runners were gray with purple laces. That was my way of asserting myself against the demands of conformity!

I guessed about 90% women, some men and a few children. Many canes, a few in wheelchairs. No one on a stretcher. Most looked like white, middle class “walking well.” But it’s hard to tell what anguish lay beneath the placid exteriors. 

There were drawings of the Entity helpers tacked to the front wall of the room. (Capital E is used for the Entities, the spirits who work through John of God. He goes into a trance and the Entities perform the medical procedures: physical surgery at his clinic in Brazil, psychic surgery everywhere else.) A wooden triangle (each side about two feet) graced the front as well, with a big basket on the floor beside it for written wishes. People lined up to interact with this “wailing triangle” (as I called it), to ask for help with their own and others’ health or emotional problems. They would lean their heads against the middle of the triangle, hands on the sides. We were encouraged to bring pictures of loved ones so that they could receive help as well.

John of God (I don’t know if others called him that and it stuck, or he chose the moniker) came up on the podium to speak. He was unintelligible as far as I was concerned. His heavy Portuguese accent made every third or fourth word a blur. Other speakers came through more clearly. One woman got us chanting his name plus “tulo bono” (or something like that) to raise our excitement level. It was like a New Age revival meeting with the purity garb and high hopes for a cure for what ails us. Just before the Entities worked on us, we held hands and said the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary Full of Grace.

Someone had a bottle of essential oil and wafted through the crowd with it.

We were supposed to buy a case of 12 2-litre bottles of water (the label had John of God’s picture on it) to help us with our recovery ($36 per case). The Entities would bless it at the point of sale so that the blessing was special for each of us. I refrained because I didn’t have a means of carrying it.

For eight days after the intervention we were supposed to rest as much as possible. No spicy food like peppers (black peppercorn and chili peppers), no alcohol, no fertilized eggs, and no heavy lifting. Also, we were warned against psychic readings and energy work for eight days. No sex for 40 days! A woman complained to me that she had just started dating a guy and didn’t like that restriction. We were given blessed soup and a sandwich (unblessed) before we were sent off to rest.

My criticism: why weren’t we told no sugar? Sugar pulls down the immune system as much as alcohol.

Our psychic stitches would be removed in seven days, we were told. We’re to wear white to bed, pray to have the stitches removed, put a cup of the blessed water next to our bed, and in the morning drink the water.

My reaction: My skeptical mind had a lot of fun poking holes in the routine. But I trusted the spirit guide who asked me to be there so I tried to keep an open mind.

At the event, I asked for help dealing with a sore on my face that could be cancerous. Maybe there’s a deep root that needs pulling out. My spirit guide wanted me to have surgery here in Winnipeg but I refused. I didn’t believe the surgeon would get it all, and I didn’t want a hole in my face. Refusing surgery is the only suggestion from her I have nixed. But I was willing to travel 1,300 miles and pay $1,500 for the trip (includes the $188 ticket for one day at the event) to have psychic surgery. Go figure! I could have stayed home and had physical surgery for free. So far (three weeks later), it looks like the sore is clearing up.

The trip as a whole was worthwhile. I saw relatives and friends in the “far east,” and I met interesting people on the train. Adam (from Australia) and I had a great talk about the damage cane toads are wreaking there. The toads were brought in to eat the cane beetles but the sugar cane heads where the beetles live were too high for the toads to get at. So now Australia has a problem with the proliferating toads and the beetles as well.

I also met an interesting man from Seattle who used to be an engineer on freight trains. The glass at the front of the train is bulletproof, I learned. Also, counseling is now available for engineers after the train hits animals, people, and various vehicles. “You didn’t cause the accident,” engineers are told. “You have witnessed one.”

So, is John of God a true healer or a charlatan? Perhaps I should declare my bias: first, I would not have gone had not my spirit guide suggested it. The event was too big for my taste, handling a few thousand people each day. One helper told me that if all the tickets sold, there would be 12,000 people put through in three days.

Second, I am inclined to believe in the possibility of spiritual healing. I am familiar with therapies like Reiki where energy is directed to problem areas of the body and often effects a cure. Also, I benefit from Craniosacral Therapy, a form of energy healing. I also believe in spirit entities wanting to help people on earth.

The success of this event is hard to assess. On the positive side, it looks like this John of God “business” has grown gradually over the years. As John says, “You can fool people for a year or two, but not for 35 years.” In the beginning, doctors and politicians in Brazil tried to shut him down for practicing medicine without a license but he’s still going strong. One article on the ‘net says his methods helped a number of high-ranking officials who then supported his work and protected him from the critics.

Another aspect to admire is the number of volunteers willing to help organize and oversee such a huge event. To be accepted as volunteers, they need to have been to John of God’s clinic in Abadiania, Brazil. There must have been over a hundred workers willing to give their time and energy free of charge. They were all well dressed (in white, of course), calm and smiling in their duties. The whole event was well organized if my experience was any indication.

On the negative side, it’s hard to assess the success of whatever medical procedures were done as people disperse after the event is over. We were told to allow 40 days before deciding whether the intervention was successful or not. How do you contact thousands of people to judge the rate of healing? (You can browse the Internet for articles for and against. Pro: An Oprah staff person investigated and was helped to overcome her deep grief about her father’s death. Con: One woman states she was assaulted at the clinic in Brazil, in that she was operated on physically without her consent, and later developed an infection.)

My inclination is to accept that John of God and the Entities must be doing something right for this high level of public interest to continue for so many years.

Anna Olson is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor. You can reach her at annols@mts.net. Check out more articles at www.annaolsononline.blogspot.com       

What We See and Hear Before We Die

By Anna Olson (1130 words)

I was so glad to find David Kessler’s book, Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms: What the Near Dying Hear and See Before Death (Hay House, 2010), because it validated my experience with a friend who was dying. Beatrice was an older woman who was like a mother to me. Unfortunately, at age 73, she had a weak heart and had just had her fifth heart attack. I knew she could be nearing the end of her life, and when she told me, “My mother is here to see me,” I knew for sure she was going to die.

How did I know that the appearance of her deceased mother’s spirit meant that Beatrice was getting ready to transition to the “other side”? I forget; this happened thirty years ago. Perhaps I had read about such a phenomenon; perhaps someone had told me. But I’m glad I did know and didn’t think Beatrice was crazy. I respected her vision and stayed with her till the end.

The study of death   

David Kessler is a modern-day thanatologist. That is, he's a student of death in all its aspects, from the biological to the emotional and paranormal.

“I don’t only deal with death in the hospital or hospice, but also at crime scenes, plane crashes, and even bioterror attacks. I follow death wherever it calls me,” writes Kessler.

A nurse, pilot, and end-of-life program facilitator, Kessler used to believe that the only thing needed to alleviate the suffering of the dying was good pain management and symptom control. Kessler now knows that besides anti-anxiety medication to combat fear and distress, “we have the ‘who’ and ‘what’ we see before we die, which is perhaps the greatest comfort to the dying.”

Kessler’s fascination with the process of death started when he was twelve and his mother was dying. In those days, the medical system didn’t see a value in family members being with the dying. He and his dad were allowed to visit her for ten minutes every two hours. She died alone. Kessler says he felt “utterly overwhelmed, knowing that what I’d seen with my mother was not how death was supposed to be.”

Since then, Kessler has learned a lot about the death process – specifically that many dying people see visions of deceased loved ones, they talk about going on a trip, and sometimes report crowds of people in their room. All these phenomena point to the existence of spirit life after death, Kessler believes. His goal is to bring that hope to people who fear that death is the end of all life for the ones they love.

Kessler uses the term near death awareness to refer to visions by the dying of the spirits of departed loved ones. This is different from near death experience where a person comes back from the brink of death and can talk about the experience.

Kessler asks, “If deceased loved ones really do appear to the dying, why can’t we, the healthy ones, see them?” He answers with a story about a dying woman who saw the spirit of her dead mother wanting the daughter to come with her. A relative who was sitting nearby said she couldn’t see the spirit. The dying woman answered, “Of course you can’t see her – she’s here for me, not you!” Kessler suggests there is a power that can “lift the veil” for the dying, allowing them to see what others cannot.

Doctors slow to accept

In general, Kessler claims, the medical profession discounts the metaphysical experiences of the dying, calling the deathbed visions hallucinations due to pain medication, fever or lack of oxygen to the brain. Kessler talked with one such skeptical oncologist who had never even been with a dying patient; he just managed treatment and pain management through bedside visits and phone consults. Others suggest that “it is the brain’s way of psychologically making it easier to die; that is, our brains are comforting and protecting us.”

But Kessler points out that it’s only deceased people who appear to those who are dying. There are many stories of a patient saying “X” is here to help me leave. The next of kin, who protest that X is still alive, later find out that X died a few hours or days ago. If these visions were the brain’s way of comforting the patient, Kessler asks, why wouldn’t images of living loved ones appear? It’s always spirits of the deceased that appear.

Those caregivers in hospices and end-of-life care management tend to have more respect for the near death phenomena as they see it more than other medical staff. They point out that sometimes patients have these paranormal experiences weeks before death when a lack of oxygen can’t be blamed.

Variety of visions

Here are some reports, courtesy of Kessler, from the friends, relatives and caregivers of the dying:

·    One patient said, “I have to get my house in order.” He was a minister and the caregiver realized that it was a metaphor from the Bible about being ready for his transition to the other side.

·  An elderly woman was dying, unresponsive for the last 24 hours, when she suddenly became alert and spoke in Czech. Apparently, she was seeing and speaking with the spirits of her mother and grandparents who didn’t speak English, so she had to speak to them in Czech.

·  A dying man wanted one last meal in a Chinese restaurant. There, he saw a vision that meant a lot to him. “She’s in white. I’ve never seen anything so white. She’s an angel, a real angel,” he told his brother.

·  A mentally challenged woman told her caregiver she was waiting for a special bus. She saw visions of buses but they weren’t the right ones. Then one came that had a ramp. This was her special bus, she said, that recognized her handicap, even though hers was a mental handicap. She died shortly after seeing her special bus.

Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms by David Kessler is an excellent book for those interested in learning about the metaphysical view of the death process for themselves and their loved ones. Medical staff would also benefit from recognizing near death phenomena as credible. When medics understand what’s happening, they can validate patients’ experiences instead of sedating them to quell what they misinterpret as hallucinations.

Anna Olson is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor. Email her at annols@mts.net to comment or to request reprint permission.

Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS

By Celia Farber

Melville House Publishing

Paperback, 340 pages, $20.50

Reviewed by ANNA OLSON

Celia Farber, a U.S. journalist living in New York City, starts her introduction to Serious Adverse Events with a quote from Winston Churchill: "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

            Then she goes on to show how the claim that HIV is the cause of AIDS became an empire fueled by rhetoric, sloppy science, outright fraud – and a billion dollar enterprise. 

            At a 1984 press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, virologist Robert Gallo planted the idea that "there was a single sexually transmissible virus that would bring imminent death upon millions of Americans." This concept raced around North America like wildfire and leapt into the media of the world. This occurred even though the medical world knew that retroviruses were considered "non-pathogenic, non-cell killing." This new retrovirus, claimed to be discovered by Gallo, bent all the rules of retrovirology to become a monster, capable, the proponents claimed, of wiping out millions. (The retrovirus was originally called HTLV-3 and later renamed Human Immunodeficiency Virus. "Gallo...spent years trying to find a disease for one of his viruses," says Farber.)

            Farber's AIDS reporting career started in 1987 when Peter Duesberg, a retrovirus scientist, inadvertently upset the burgeoning AIDS establishment by calmly stating in an article what everyone knew: that retroviruses don't kill cells. Robert Gallo, on the other hand, claimed that "HIV kills like a truck" and he had the money, in the form of a steady stream of government grants, to chase HIV and bend results to his will. Farber was intrigued with Duesberg, interviewed him, and kept following the story, even to the frontier of Africa where AIDS was said to be devastating a nation.

The shunning

            Farber starts Serious Adverse Events with a chapter entitled, "The Passion of Peter Duesberg," giving us a glimpse of a resilient man who has withstood the empire trying to force him to recant his position that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. For daring to question the HIV myth, Duesberg, a top-level scientist, lost his lab funding, was un-invited to conferences and generally shunned by the scientific community that preferred to have access to HIV grant money. Despite 20 years of pressure, Duesberg has refused to back down and has instead shifted his focus to cancer genetics where he is once again gaining respect for his theories and experiments. Farber attended one of his cancer lectures where Duesberg spoke to students and his peers, commenting at one point, "Because retroviruses don't kill cells...." No one gasped or ran out of the room.

            "Was it because they [the cancer researchers] don't deal with AIDS that they accepted this truth as self-evident?" asks Farber. "If retroviruses, as a class, are known not to kill cells, then how could that one – HIV – do something no other virus in its class could do?"

What about Africa?

            In the beginning, the early 80s, AIDS struck mainly gay men and intravenous drug users. Some predicted that it would run rampant through the heterosexual bedrooms of North America. It never did but Africa has come to the rescue.

            We in the West have been warned that the explosion of heterosexual AIDS in Africa could happen here, too. Farber credits Africa for giving beleaguered believers in the HIV myth new hope: "Losing none of their piety or implicit guilt, and undeterred by the abysmal failure of their hypothesis about the level of HIV infection to live up to a single one of the predictions made for it, many believers had a new kind of pepper spray to stop any critical thinker in his or her tracks. It consisted of four words: 'Well, what about Africa?'"

             Farber has been to Africa many times and admits she has seen plenty of illness and death. "But how are people in the West so certain that HIV is the culprit?" she asks. Diagnostic tests are expensive and rarely used. Cause of death and death statistics are poorly kept. The list of symptoms, which are said to prove AIDS, is broad enough to include many diseases that have plagued Africa for centuries, like dysentery, tuberculosis and malaria.

            Occasionally, an HIV test is given but Farber points out that the ELISA and Western Blot tests can cross-react with antibodies from other diseases. In countries where poverty and malnutrition are common, people's immune systems interact with a higher number of pathogens and parasites, thus creating more antibodies than usual. High numbers of false positives are the result. The HIV test does not test for a virus, but only for antibodies thought to be specific to HIV. 

            Another reason to question the high AIDS statistics in Africa is the practice of giving an HIV test to pregnant women at a clinic then extrapolating the results to the general public. Pregnancy is one of the conditions that can give a false positive. Another assumption is that HIV weakens the immune system, predisposing people to get tuberculosis and malaria. Those diseases are counted as AIDS, which swells the numbers of the AIDS "epidemic."

            The basic premise in the West is that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease, carried especially in semen. Farber quotes studies that show that very little, if any, HIV is present in the semen of men with full blown AIDS. "You generally need thousands or millions of copies of any virus for it to be infective," one scientist explains. The West hammers the message through extensive publicity in Africa that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease. This message is harassing a continent, causing unnecessary fear and shame, Farber claims.

            For someone who wants information about AIDS that is not reported in the mainstream media, Serious Adverse Events by Celia Farber is a gem.            

            

The Potential and Peril of Assisted Suicide

For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground.  Jello Biafra (musician)

The subject of assisted suicide is painful to think about – and very controversial, as I have found out.

         I hadn’t intended to research assisted suicide. It was a bargain bin that seduced me, offering A Chosen Death: The Dying Confront Assisted Suicide for fifty cents. It turned out to be a well-spent pittance, informing me about this contentious area.

         Although the book is now out of print, I thought that it was worth reviewing. (It’s available as a used book on amazon.ca.) Its author, Lonny Shavelson, follows five individuals wrestling with illness and disability, all wanting assisted suicide from a doctor, relative or friend if the pain gets too severe. Interwoven with personal experiences are details of the larger picture.

         Shavelson begins his exploration of physician assisted suicide (PAS), which is illegal in Canada and most states south of the border, with details from his own life. His pre-ordained role in life, he was taught, was to become a doctor and find a cure for his mother’s disease. If that didn’t work, he was to give her a fatal injection of potassium chloride.

         “In the household of my childhood, my mother simply assumed it would be appropriate for me, the son, to help end her life when she decided she was ready. As a child, I thought this was a common family arrangement.”

         This pressure affected Shavelson, sending him into a depression of his own. Although he left home at sixteen, he did become a doctor, and later, a journalist. In his early forties, he was thrown into awareness of the controversy about PAS when Dr. Jack Kevorkian was arrested for assisting suicide – and Final Exit by Derek Humphrey, a how-to-manual for suicide, sold 520,000 copies.

         “I realized that, secretly, in darkened bedrooms across the country, thousands of parents, children, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, lovers and friends were deciding whether or not to aid in the death of a loved one,” writes Shavelson.

         The first story is about Renee, a young woman who developed brain cancer that metastasized to her lymph nodes. When she felt she had had enough suffering, she took a certain medicine (we’re not told which one) and some vodka to strengthen the effect. Unfortunately, she was still alive many hours later. Shavelson had to decide whether to leave her in a coma or help to finish the suicide. He declines to be explicit, stating, “Euthanasia is a capital crime.” In resonating with hundreds of other families who have struggled with similar decisions, he concludes, “this is not how it should be.”

         Pierre was a gay man with AIDS. The unusual part of his situation was that gay men in California were not arrested for assisting suicide. While Dr. Kevorkian was being prosecuted in Michigan, gay suicide helpers in California could openly assist with no fear of arrest. “Isolated by a society that had rejected them, gays were making their own rules – especially about death and dying,” says Shavelson. He notes that gay men suffering from AIDS exchanged recipes of lethal drug combinations the way women exchange recipes for coffee cake.

         Even though assisted suicide was available to him, Pierre kept putting it off. He threatened suicide if he ever became bed-ridden or had to use oxygen, but when these conditions actualized, he would shift the criteria to avoid “doing it” that day. Shavelson calls this the “moving line in the sand” that terminally ill patients often use. Pierre died in his sleep, knowing that he could have assistance if he wanted it.

         Interwoven with the stories are many philosophical points, the pros and cons of legalizing assisted suicide:

•         If physician assisted suicide becomes legal, will doctors spend the time to determine whether patients requesting that service are temporarily depressed or are indeed suffering unbearable pain? Some fear giving the doctors this power will enable them to either act too quickly or refuse a valid request.

•         Will poor and handicapped people be unnecessarily euthanized? Will rich elderly patients be pushed into death by greedy relatives? These are concerns voiced by the anti-assisted suicide forces. The subject has become polarized between “Right to Life” and “Die With Dignity” camps.

•         Shavelson points out that abuses of assisted suicide do exist today. “In the absence of legally available aid from physicians,” he writes, “abuses are occurring at the hands of unregulated freelance euthanasists, illegal suppliers meeting an otherwise unmet demand.”

•         Shavelson claims that the public supports physician assisted suicide. “… opinion polls have repeatedly shown that some two-thirds of the public favours the right of people with terminal illnesses to end their lives, and to have professional help to do it.” He also claims that up to 37 percent of doctors surveyed have admitted to aiding in the death of a terminally ill patient.

         The Hemlock Society is one of many “right to die” organizations that provide literature, meetings, and conferences about assisted suicide – and details of the various methods of “self-deliverance.” Although Hemlock says that members do not provide counseling or end-of-life assistance, no effort is made to police the membership. Shavelson details the actions of one Hemlock member who provided lethal drugs to a sick man – and then, when he decided he wanted to live – forced him to go through with the suicide. Hemlock was notified of her behaviour but nothing was done about it.

Palliative care groups wrestle with PAS

In A Chosen Death, Shavelson reports the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) as being against Physician Assisted Suicide. The whole hospice movement took a vehement position against clients even talking about the possibility. If a hospice worker heard that a client might be considering assisted suicide, that client was cut off palliative care services.

         Since Chosen Death was written, things have changed. Because the Canadian Hospice and Palliative Care Association changed its position from prohibition to one of “studied neutrality,” the Americans followed suit. In their statement to the media in February of 2007, the AAHPM recognized “sincere, compassionate, morally conscientious individuals” on either side of the debate. “[Our] members should … continue to strive to find the proper response to those patients whose suffering becomes intolerable despite the best possible palliative care,” AAHPM claimed.

         Another change: instead of PAS (physician assisted suicide), many groups are using PAD (physician assisted dying). The workers in favour of legalizing this area felt that PAD was a more marketable term, a softer verbal landing spot for a distressing topic.

Spirits may need help to move on

There’s one aspect of assisted death that people might not be aware of. I have learned from other books that when a person dies naturally of illness or old age, the body gives off a “signal,” alerting spirit helpers on the other side to come and assist with the transition. There’s a chance that in an assisted suicide, the signal would not be given off and the spirit would be stranded on the earth plane. We call such spirits "mind-set spirits" or ghosts.

         One solution I have read about is for family and friends to light a candle and pray for the spirit of the deceased, asking that he or she receive the help needed to go to the light. Perhaps a priest performing last rites for a person intending assisted suicide would help the spirit as well. This could be an area for right-to-die groups to look into, providing spiritual counseling and end-of-life spiritual ceremonies when requested.

         I emailed Lonny Shavelson to ask if he and his subjects had discussed belief in the afterlife. Here’s his response: “I don't recall any focus on the afterlife (or lack of it) in my conversations with the folks in the book. Although I'm sure we talked about that, the focus was distractingly on the details of ‘how can I get there in as dignified a way as possible,’ much more so than ‘what happens once I'm there.’          

         “That, again, is one of the sad things of having dying people and their families in isolation deal with planning, dosages, timing, comfort, etc. when they could be exploring the more profound aspects of their deaths and whatever may follow.”

                                        * * *** * *

In A Chosen Death, Lonny Shavelson has provided a thought-provoking exploration of assisted suicide. He makes a good case for allowing it to be legalized. One of the safeguards he recommends is that of having two physicians examine the patient, and to consider medical and psychological help before approving assisted suicide. He suggests that an attempt at regulation, although there might be some abuses, would be better than the unregulated mixture of amateur attempts that we have now.

Anna Olson is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor specializing in the study of spirituality and metaphysics. If you have comments or suggestions for future articles, email her at annols@mts.net.

Respect Past Life Memories: A New Concept for Childcare

By Anna Olson

Unfortunately nothing in our culture prepares parents for this moment. On the contrary, everything in our culture teaches that children’s past life memories are impossible.

          from Children’s Past Lives by Carol Bowman

IN THE BOOK, Children’s Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child, author Carol Bowman proposes instructing parents and childcare givers on how to listen to children’s past life memories if and when they emerge. She feels that scientists (details below) have adequately proven the validity of past life memories, and now the question is how to put this knowledge to good use.

       Bowman suggests that remembering past lives could be “a natural part of our soul’s development, an opportunity to clear issues from the past.” She details cases where a person’s problems in this life refused to clear up until a relevant past life was revealed. Perhaps “parents are part of the plan for helping our children benefit from spontaneous past life memories,” she says.

       But first, how do you know when a child is having a genuine past life memory versus spinning a tale? Bowman gives four signs to look for: a matter-of-fact tone, consistency over time, knowledge beyond experience, and corresponding behaviour and traits.

       Bowman, mother of Chase and Sarah, describes how she stumbled into the surreal world of past life memories. Four-year-old Chase had an intense fear of loud noises that had no relation to trauma in his life so far. When Carol met a regression therapist who helped clients remember past lives, she asked him to work with Chase in case there was a past life aspect to the boy’s fear. There was. Chase recounted a time when he was a soldier and was surrounded by canons going off. After reliving that past life, Chase’s fear of loud noises diminished.

       That was the start of Bowman’s immersion into the subject of reincarnation. She read all she could, and took a week-long workshop on receiving and assisting regressions. She saw how her past lives reflected some of the difficulties she had in the present, and she also became more adept at helping others access their memories.

Reincarnation controversy

       If past lives are real, then reincarnation, whereby the soul returns to earth in a different body over and over again, is real. Reincarnation is a touchy subject as the Western world is largely Christian with its belief in one life only; you die, and then your soul goes to heaven or hell for eternity. It’s a challenge for parents who believe the Christian dogma to be suddenly confronted with a child claiming to having lived before.

       Bowman doesn’t go into depth on the religious aspect in her book; she focuses instead on the proof for reincarnation, how to handle children’s revelations, and the healing aspect for children and grown-ups alike. (On her website, www.childpastlives.org, click “library” for Bowman’s article, “Reincarnation and the Early Christian Church.”)

       For proof, Bowman points to the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, head of the psychology department, University of Virginia School of Medicine. He wrote Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Children Who Remember Past Lives. Dr. Stevenson limits his investigation to cases in which the child starts talking about memories without anyone asking. Up to 1997, he and his colleagues had collected more than 2,600 cases from a wide range of cultures and religions around the world.

       To qualify for a “solved” case, Dr. Stevenson wants to hear detailed memories of the past life from the child, a match to the life of one (and only one) predeceased individual, and no way the child could have known the details other than having lived as this individual. If there are traits, skills, phobias, and preferences that are out of place for a child’s natural family, but that match the life of the previous personality, those details would reinforce the verbal memories and strengthen the evidence for reincarnation, Stevenson contends.

       In thirty-five percent of his verified cases (309 of 895), the children had birthmarks or birth defects that matched wounds from their previous lives. ”They are important because they offer physical evidence for the link between past and present lives,” claims Dr. Stevenson. He found that memories often appear for the first time when the child is between the ages of two and five.

       Most spontaneous past life memories in children involve memories of death – especially a violent one. Dr. Stevenson suggests: “It seems reasonable to suppose that the intensity of an experience such as a violent death can in some way strengthen or ‘fixate’ memories so that they are more readily preserved in consciousness.” 

Prepare for the shock

       Now for the heart of the topic: advice for caregivers when a child announces shockers like, “My other mommy had curly hair” or “I died before.” One 18-month-old toddler, who had spoken in single words only to that point, told her stunned mother, "I am going to take my vows tomorrow. My name is Rose but tomorrow I will be Sister Theresa Gregory."

      Bowman offers five suggestions to help you cope with what could be one of the most memorable moments of your life.

·         Stay calm. Especially if you’re the driver in a moving vehicle! Many children reveal past lives as they slip into an altered state due to the vibration of the car. Pull over if you can and turn off the car. Take a deep breath and pay attention to the child’s words and tone of voice.

·         Acknowledge. Use a loving voice and assuring words to help your child continue with the revelation.

·         Allow emotions. Allow the memory to unfold naturally and the child to express his or her emotions.

·         Clarify past and present. Help your child to understand that the past life is over and that his or her present reality is safe.

       Bowman encourages caregivers to trust that their love for the child will come through. “Respond by affirming, allowing, encouraging, acknowledging, explaining, clarifying, assuring – and always with love,” she writes. “More important than any technique,” she adds, “allow your child to lead the way.” Simple phrases like “Oh, I see,” or “That’s interesting,” or echoing the child’s statement, can help the child to stay focused and continue with the story.

       Children’s Past Lives abounds with stories of children (and adults) healing after a relevant past life was revealed. Here’s another story involving her son, Chase. He was upset after a “Ninja” slumber party with games, videos and pizza. After that night, he got anxiety attacks at bedtime. “He felt sick to his stomach, got very pale and quiet, and was anxious about not being able to get to sleep,” Bowman says. This went on for six weeks. The parents tried everything to comfort him but nothing worked.

       Then Chase, who by now was familiar with past lives, suggested doing a regression. His mother helped him to stay with the feelings from the Ninja party in order to find the relevant past life. He traveled in his mind back to “castle times” where he was trying to steal something, got caught, and put in a dungeon where he died. He explored his feelings from that life and could see how the Ninja party triggered the memory. His stomachache left, and he slept peacefully.

                          * * *

Reincarnation is real to me because I have experienced past lives myself. About 25 years ago, I went to a regression therapist out of curiosity. The lives that I relived seemed credible because of the physical sensations involved. For example, in one life, I was a young soldier shot in the lower back. As I described the incident, I felt a shock at the base of my spine that went to the top of my head and to my feet at the same time. I have never had that sensation in this lifetime.

       In another past life memory, I died in a fire. I could feel three stages to the death: I was conscious and in pain; I was unconscious but still alive; then I felt my spirit leave my body. Needless to say, I have not experienced that in this life. The good part about reliving past lives for me is that if I have lived before, I assume I will live again. This present life is just one of many. I'll do my best and know that I can complete things in other lives if necessary.

       As I was preparing this article, I asked friends for their experiences. Here’s a sampling:

·         Pat says her four-year-old grandson Anders asked her, "Do you miss Christopher?" She told him "Yes" whereupon he replied, “You don’t have to worry about Chris anymore. He’s in my body.” Pat’s son Chris had died at age eight. Anders knew about the death of Chris but the concept "he's in my body" was totally his own thinking. Pat told me, "I don't understand it, I just accept it." 

·         Maria told me her five-year-old daughter announced she had lived in Atlantis. "The reason Atlantis disappeared," she told her surprised mother, "is that the people abused their psychic powers. They could kill others by using their thoughts."

Anna Olson is a freelance writer and editor living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. If you would like permission to reprint this or other articles, email her at annols@mts.net.

Near Death Experience – What Comes After?

By Anna Olson

“If you expect to die when you die, you will be disappointed.”

P.M.H. Atwater

SO MANY PEOPLE have come back from the brink of death and described their visit to the “other side” that it’s no longer a taboo subject.

    It’s got a name now: near death experience or NDE for short – and the one who has been to “heaven” and back is called an NDEr.

In times past, “the great majority [of NDErs] were either ignored, made fun of, threatened, and in some cases physically abused because they dared to tell their story,” write Phyllis Atwater in Coming Back to Life: The After-Effects of the Near Death Experience.

    Atwater is a poster girl for NDEs as she survived three of them. A good part of her drive to learn more was a need to connect with other NDErs to facilitate her own recovery. She has now written ten books, and lectures extensively on the subject.

I floated up and out of my body, passed through a dark tunnel and ascended towards a light at the end of the darkness. I was greeted by friendly beings, some of who I knew. Then I was told that my work on earth was not finished and that I needed to return. I descended into my body, feeling confined and limited again.

    This is a typical NDE but Atwater has heard many variations. For example: one woman saw herself encased in a blue bubble; a man felt himself held by a giant hand; a woman straddled a light beam and toured the universe; and a man saw nothing, but heard a thunderous voice instructing him on work to be done when he returned to his body.

    But regardless of how simple or complex the near death episode,” says Atwater, “the vast majority of survivors commented most about the incredible, overwhelming love they felt, the peace, the feeling of total acceptance, and the Presence of God.”

    Atwater suggests that survivors of NDEs may go through several stages in their emotional recovery:

Withdrawal and internal adjustment. Not only has the NDEr had a metaphysical experience but is also likely recovering from an illness or accident.

Realignment with family and friends. Depending how receptive they are to this other-worldly experience, the process will be easy and smooth or rough and bumpy. Sometimes NDErs turn to drugs and alcohol because of the difficulty of adjusting to the “real world” after glimpsing the peace and love on the other side.

Balancing the internal and external pressures. If this balancing act is successful, the NDEr often develops more self-confidence and becomes interested in service to others.

A time of discouragement. If there is too big a gap between the NDEr’s values and those of family, friends and culture, the NDEr can become depressed. Some even attempt suicide.

Deep integration of the near death experience. The NDEr finds the strength to express his or her values no matter what others may think.

Finding love and warmth on the other side

A friend of mine, “Beth,” almost died after a car accident when she was in her early twenties. She floated away from her body, she says, and saw a “big warm light” in the distance. Also present was her grandmother who had died five years earlier. Beth and her gramma had had a close bond. Beth remembers longing to stay with the love of her gramma and go with her to the big light in the distance. But it wasn’t her time; Gramma told her to go back. The next thing Beth knew, she was waking up in a hospital bed with anxious medical staff peering at her.

    The happy part of the story is that Beth reveled in the love from her grandmother and the light. “Ever since then, I’ve felt her watching over me,” says Beth. “And I know there is more than this physical life. I know it from inside.”

    The sad part is that she was a victim of a more repressive time. She told no one about her NDE for over 40 years. “My family, even though they were religious, would have thought I was out of my mind,” says Beth. “I knew they would be afraid of the neighbours thinking they had a crazy daughter, so I kept quiet.” When she heard I was writing on this subject, she broke her 40-year silence and told me what she had been through.

A four-year-old boy meets Jesus

In this story, the parents are incredibly open and supportive when their four-year-old son, Colton, talks about what he saw and heard when he almost died from a ruptured appendix.

    We learn the full details in Heaven is for Real written by his father, Todd Burpo, a Wesleyan pastor in the small town of Imperial, Nebraska. (The Wesleyan Church is an evangelical Protestant denomination.)

    The revelation of the near death experience starts four months after the crisis when the Burpo family is traveling to another town to visit relatives. As they pass the turn-off to the hospital, Todd’s wife Sonja asks her son if he remembers his time there.

    “Yes, Mommy, I remember,” he said. “That’s where the angels sang to me.”

    Thus starts an amazing journey for Colton’s parents as they struggle to comprehend and accept what their son is saying. Over the next two years, the details gradually come out. Jesus has really pretty eyes, and he loves children (really loves children), and he has a rainbow-coloured horse, and I did homework up there, and there are lots of children. Plus many more details.

    At one point, Colton announces to his mother that he has two sisters. Sonja protests that he has only one and that’s Cassie. Colton is adamant, claiming a baby died in his mom’s tummy.

“In heaven, this little girl ran up to me and wouldn’t stop hugging me,” says Colton. She said she was the spirit of the baby that had died. The shocked parents had not told Colton about the stillbirth.

Colton’s announcement helped to heal some of the pain of losing a baby they very much wanted. “She said she just can’t wait till you and Daddy get to heaven,” Colton added.

    Todd and Sonja are religious parents, knee-deep in church dogma, committees and social life. Todd Burpo is a pastor and used to talking about heaven from scripture, not from experience. He adjusts, often with self-deprecating humour to the challenge of listening to a four year old talking matter-of-factly about what heaven is like.

    My understanding is that the other side is different for each person, reflecting their beliefs and interests on earth. I don’t think people need to assume that if what Colton is saying is true, this would rule out other religious figures and scenarios. It’s possible to read this book and enjoy one child’s experience, but still have respect for all the religious and spiritual variety in the world.

In a nutshell

·         *    If you’ve had a near death experience, you’re not alone. Even if friends and family don’t accept your new reality, there is help online and in books. Having an NDE is the first step; integrating that experience into the rest of your life is the second.

·        *  One such resource is the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS). Type that name into a browser and you’ll find a website loaded with information.

·        *   If you’re a caregiver (lay or professional), know that some institutions and medical courses include information on how to detect when someone has had an NDE (e.g. the person may be disappointed to be saved from death). Personnel are advised to gently ask patients if anything unusual happened while they were unconscious. This helps people to start the integration process.

Understanding the near death experience is just one aspect of the new “after life awareness” that is surging around the world. Books, videos, websites, and even conferences have sprung up. There is so much out there for the inquisitive person to explore.

Anna Olson is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor. To enquire about reprint permission, email her at annols@mts.net.