Lightning at the Gate: A Visionary Journey of Healing

by Jeanne Achterberg

Book Overview

In this text, an alternative health practitioner relates her personal account of healing from cancer. With first-hand accounts of therapies, the book demonstrates how a combination of critical... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570628580
• ISBN13: 9781570628580
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Shambhala Publications
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Seeing the Light

A respected authority on the use of guided imagery to heal, Dr. Jeanne Achterberg writes an engaging story about her harrowing and year-long journey through physical pain and spiritual darkness into wellness. She uses her suspected diagnosis for ocular melanoma - a rare and potentially deadly cancer of the internal layer of the eye - as the literal and symbolic theme to anchor a story that is part thriller, memoir, medical mystery, self-help resource and alternative medicine advocacy. In about 50 short, distinct chapters, Achterberg guides the reader through the impact of this catastrophic disease on relationships in her "orbit" - self, others, the alternative healing community, as well as with the mainstream medical profession. Achterberg, as reflects her background, credits shamanic and prayerful influences with healing her eye. Unfortunately, since her diagnosis was never medically confirmed, it's not possible to establish that cause-effect relationship. This lack of perspective reduces her compelling story to a largely anecdotal account. The promise of alternative healing to transform people's lives has not been realized on a broad scale due to the lack of cross collaboration between the alternative and scientific communities. Achterberg was uniquely positioned to bridge the alternative/mainstream divide. Instead, a story of triumph uncomfortably comes across as an "us vs. them" contest However, Lightning At the Gate is the only book out there that talks about ocular melanoma from a personal perspective. For many diagnosed with this cancer, that's the only story that really matters. For more information about this rare cancer, please check out the See A Cure Foundation website found at seeacure.com

Searing, honest, funny, great

Jeanne Achterberg breaks the mold of illness memoirs and healing tracts with her searing honesty, wit, fresh prose style, insight, and sheer spiritual brazenness. What a joy to read, a powerful investigation of the sorrowful, tough, often elevating experiences of this wounded healer going deeper to try to heal herself, and the personal losses and gains that occur along the way. Bless her for being so nakedly honest in sharing the hard truths about her marriage and personal life in a way that doesn't make the reader feel like a voyeur but like a dear friend who needs to know about the intertwined tentacles of her life as she lives it, and as she tries to extend and expand it both by turning within and by reaching out. Actherberg helps us understand that illness can be a metaphor; it all depends on what metaphor we construct, what truths it holds, and what we do about it.