Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/610464
art & soul BOOKS Revelations of the Ruby Crystal By Barbara Hand Clow W ith a story set in Rome against the backdrop of events in the months surrounding the "End of History," December 21, 2012, veteran Pleiadian channeler and Mayan Calendar specialist Barbara Hand Clow tries her hand at fi ction. Sharing elements of a Dan Brown metaphysical potboiler and a steamy Harlequin romance, Roman Church history here directly correlates with human corruption and depravity, arriving at the dawn of the foreordained new consciousness with the decline and fall of Pope Benedict and the rise of Francis, the New Age pontiff. Crises of faith abound, as do nipple-rousing sensuality and ghastly child abuse by priests. Devout but challenged Catholics, presumably numerous among targeted readers, may blanch at the suggestion that the antichrist arrived while Christ himself was still warm. The fi rst-century church of St. Peter insisted on the inclusion of the Judaic Old Testament and its patriarchal god, Yahweh, alongside the much briefer New Testament's god of love and mercy, in the canon of Christ. Gnostic resistance brought on the fi rst Christian reign of terror, initiating the two-millennial tradition of power and greed, tithes and inquisitions that informed and at times dominated church policy until the most recent sex abuse scandal caused its collapse and a new reformation. The characters are largely intriguing and believable, and the plot moves along engagingly. As profound religious experiences proliferate, we learn to recognize evidence of the new consciousness in friends and ourselves, and forgive the author for occasionally indulging in excessive details of wardrobes and accessories of the most beautiful people anyone has ever seen. Stylistically, we continually observe that any declarative sentence becomes a question with a simple act of punctuation? Since the book ends a bit inconclusively, perhaps this suggests a sequel? (Bear & Co.) —Mac Graham Christopher Vasey, N.D. I n a signifi cant departure from this Swiss naturopath's earlier works (The Acid-Alkaline Diet, Optimal Detox), which address physical health from the perspective of integrative medicine, this offering explores the premise that the human soul or spirit is connected to the body through the blood. Vasey's perspective-shifting theory was revealed to him while reading a metaphysical work entitled In the Light of Truth: the Grail Message, by early 20th-century author Oskar Ernst Bern- hard, also known as Abd-ru-shin. The concept of the blood's bridging and "radiating" role twixt the body and the human spirit captured Vasey's imagination, affording him a possible explanation of a medical quandary: "...why naturopathic treat- ments targeting a physical problem can also infl uence the mind, ...suggest(ing) specifi c tools for working on the mind in a positive way, through the blood. In fact, by altering our blood composition, we can take positive steps to achieve mental bal- ance and inner harmony." What follows is a fascinating survey detailing the primacy of blood over tissues and structures of the body, blood's true purpose, phys- ical and psychic factors in- fl uencing blood, blood's infl uence on the spirit through perception, hor- mones and Hippocrates' four temperaments, and the spirit's infl uence on the blood af- fecting such things as longevity, sleep and death. Vasey's insights on changing blood's energetic vibration (radi- ation) through diet stem from a 40-year career, and offer both practical methods for optimizing health and mystical musings aplenty. The appendix provides a bonus—an excerpted chapter of relevant material from The Grail Message itself. (Healing Arts Press) —Marcy Emmer Graham The Spiritual Mysteries of Blood Its Power to Transform Body, Mind and Spirit october/november 2015 33 december/january 2016 33