Lightning at the Gate | 
| Author: Jeanne Achterberg
Publisher: Shambhala
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 435330
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 1570628580
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.19699484092
EAN: 9781570628580
ASIN: 1570628580
Publication Date: January 15, 2002
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Product Description
Jeanne Achterberg is an internationally known authority on the use of imagery to heal the body. She is best known for developing the technique known as guided visualization, and she was recently featured in Time magazine as one of the top innovators in the field of alternative medicine. In 1999 she was diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a rare and often deadly form of cancer of the eye. Lightning at the Gate is the remarkable story of her illness and healing?a deeply personal memoir that is at turns haunting, humorous, biting, and exhilarating. This engaging and entertaining book demonstrates how a combination of critical thought, creativity, inner vision, and friendship can lead to profound healing. In Lightning at the Gate, Achterberg writes, "The only way one stays alive after a serious diagnosis of cancer is to find one's vision." This captivating memoir documents her process of doing just that. Choosing to view her cancer as a metaphor, she draws on dreamwork, shamanism, healing imagery, prayer, rituals, songs, immune-stimulation therapy, and the loving care of friends to cure her illness. Lightning at the Gate ends in affirming Achterberg's core belief that we are healed not by medicine but by the bonds we create with each other: care, love, trust, hope, belief, and all the other invisible facets that have lost favor in modern health care. Readers will benefit from seeing how a leader in alternative medicine approaches her own illness: how she weighs the information and choices presented to her by the Western medical establishment; how she advocates for herself; and how she finds her own, individual path back to health. Lightning at the Gate also offers fascinating first-hand accounts of cutting-edge alternative therapies. Also included is a valuable resource section listing books, websites, and organizations offering information on holistic methods of healing. This book is sure to become a must-read for anyone interested in alternative medicine and the healing arts.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Seeing the Light May 7, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
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 February 15, 2002
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
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.
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