This is an excellent stretching guide. The whole body is stretched, even your eyes! At the end of this series of strethces your whole body feels different and your mind is more at peace. Each simple stretch is done with coordinating breaths, which helps to relieve mental tension as well as physical tension. It takes a few sessions to learn the stretches, but once you remember them you just glance at the book and it only takes about 20 minutes for the whole series. I do these at least every Friday to help me relax for a more enjoyable weekend!

This book is a potential life changer and will make you rethink the way you think about health. Breath as discussed by Rama and the others is revealed as THE center to all life, our life, Yoga, and to how "happy' we are in both body and mind (i.e., OM). What's great is getting a nice Western emprical discussion of the physiology of breath, and then getting Rama's discussion of breath in the context of Yoga. Another cool part is understanding how important the nose is to breathing and health. A very practical and fascinating book and a great beginning to Yoga.

The book is excellent and a good introduction to the basis beginning of Yoga. The current offering of the book is a very bad copy of the original book and is marginal for reading. The original book was obviously copied on a copier and the pages inserted into a soft cover book. Do not buy this book.

I am a lifelong yogini and yoga teacher and originally bought this book when it was first published. In the years since have probably bought at least a half dozen other books on this topic and can honestly say this one is still the best. I recommend it regularly to my students because it's both jam-packed with information and completely accessible and direct in its approach. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I was captivated by the wealth of useful information found in this book, ranging from homeopathic medicines and working with doshas to spiritual health and prevention. The writing is intelligent, and the tables, pictures and detailed experiences helped me understand the concepts, therefore making the book fun to read. Thanks to Radical Healing, I see how important integration of medicines really is. I learned to trust my body and my judgement when it comes to my health care. I know not to rely on everything my doctor tells me, not by any fault of his own, but because he is not educated in my alternative choices. And until my health care providers realize the importance of integration and do something about it, I will continue to research my ailments and educate myself before seeking treatment. I highly recommend this book to everyone concerned about their well being and the well being of others. It will change the way you view the western way of practicing health care and perhaps get us closer to "Integrating The World's Great Therapeutic Traditions To Create A New And Transformative Medicine".

Looking at the state of holistic medicine today, what we have are all these great healing therapies, but what they lack is unity. In fact, it seems that Holistic medicine is mimicking the efforts of Western medicine by compartmentalizing healing. As Western medicine has its gynecologists, cardiologists, podiatrists and dermatologists, Holistic medicine has its acupuncturists, herbalists, and homeopathic doctors just to name a few.

What Radical Healing does is that it demonstrates how most of the holistic healing therapies can be used in conjunction to heal the body, mind and soul. It not only provides a map of how to benefit from using these therapies in combination, but also introduces the know how so we can begin to heal ourselves.

Dr. Rudolph Ballentine has provided the reader with many of his case studies and personal experiences, which brings to life the theoretical foundations of each of the holistic modalities that he covers in his book. Radical Healing is a masterpiece. I have changed careers after reading it and that is only one of the many changes I made in my life. No other book provides such transformation. So, please do yourself a favor and go out and buy it!

With a near saturation of books on various holistic healing modalities available, Dr. Ballentine's Radical Healing is uniquely refreshing. The book presents a unique integration of time honored eastern and western healing modalities such as Homeopathy, Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Native American Herbalism, and Flower Essences. Ballentine presents numerous case studies and personal experiences throughout his decades of holistic practice, which add great depth to the theoretical aspects of the book. It is this combination--the hundreds or sometimes thouands of years of empirical science that healing traditions such as Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, or Homeopathy are based on--combined with Ballentine's awareness and use of intuition and the archetypes of nature, that make this book a cut above the rest. In this sense Radical Healing is truly "holistic," in that unlike overly specialized modern medicine, it addresses the entire physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of wellness and disease. Understanding that we need to view our health or disease holistically, i.e. as an interplay of all of these levels, rather than people who go to doctors to fix our "physical" problems, psychiatrists for "emotional" problems, and priests for "spiritual" problems, is indeed "Radical." However, I believe that Ballentine's vision provides an integrative model of healing for the future if we are to become responsible stewards of our bodies, minds,and our planet.

Since the book is over 20 years old, I am concerned that the information is now outdated. Does anyone have any comments regarding this issue?

This is a great book that has a lot of timeless and priceless info on food and its effects on our physical body and our consciousness. It was written years ago, but one point the author makes is that we should take our advice on diet from those cultures who have been living and eating healthfully for thousands of years instead of jumping on the latest nutrition trend that originated three years ago. Who knows how the trendy thinking on diet, which originated in the past several years, will pan out over coming decades? Since this book's publication, several of its ideas have first fallen out of fashion only to be later praised by nutrition gurus. Overall it's an important read and reference for anyone interested in holistic health.

This book is an encyclopedia of information, but I read it front-to-back like a novel. Not only does it describe the different food groups, vitamins and minerals, but it also explains the digestive process and how nutrients are absorbed by the body. Scientific principles are explained in a way that anyone can understand. As far as the information being outdated, the human body today works the same way that it did 20 years ago, so the information is still relevant.

In Transition To Vegetarianism: An Evolutionary Step, Doctor Rudolpf Ballentine presents an informed and persuasive survey of the value and reasoning to a vegetarian diet. Dr. Ballentine's informative text is laced with health relevant information such as meat-eaters having three times as many heart attacks as vegetarians, that a vegetarian diet decreases osteoporosis dramatically, that in endurance tests vegetarians had more than twice the stamina and strength of meat-eaters, and that the vegetarian diet is a time-honored technique for promoting alertness and clarity of consciousness. Ideal for the non-specialist general reader, Transition To Vegetarianism covers red meat, poultry, fish, and the question of milk and eggs in a vegetarian diet. If you are considering the pros and cons of a vegetarian diet for yourself, begin with reading Dr. Rudolf Ballentine's Transition To Vegetarianism.

Most people can't stop eating meat one day and put a red "X" on the plate instead. Unless you live in a culture like India, or eat lots of beans and rice, it takes a bit of adjustment to move to a plant-based diet.

When newly minted militant vegetarian friends reject the idea of starting out by simply eating less meat, this book is the place to turn for support. After twenty years of shepherding people toward a more vegetarian diet, I've seen definite trends that emerge when giving up meat: persistent cheese-eating, a plethora of omelet dishes, a sudden craving for peanut butter, etc. This guide gives sound practical explanations about why these cravings happen; it also gives suggestions for maintaining nutrition without going overboard on fat. Vegans will be unhappy with the assertion that a plant-based diet with some milk products is a typical solution for Americans, but realistically, how many of us are willing to do what it takes to maintain a strictly vegan diet the rest of our lives? And as additional research emerges on fatty acids (such as Omega-3 and Omega-6 oils) there seems to be an increasing number of reasons to consider fish as a practical substitute for supplements like hempseed or flaxseed oil.

Over the years, I've heard countless people wake up to nutrition and tell me they've discovered the "only healthy diet there is." Every one of those diets has been different! Rather than rushing out to try someone else's diet, I'd recommend looking at Dr. Ballentine's set of guidelines first. This is one of the only books on vegetarianism I know that doesn't tell you "here's the best diet." Instead, the author presents the pros and cons of various food options, and gives you a reasonable way to work towards a diet which suits both your body and your life situation.

I wish I had this book when I first eliminated meat from my diet - it would have saved me a LOT of grief and prevented some pretty bad dietary habits. It gives a unique and well-grounded approach to becoming a vegetarian or shaping up your diet if you're already vegetarian. It does say that eating dairy can be helpful, which there is some controversy on, but even many experts who are anti-dairy object to milk products mainly because they are packed with hormones, pasteurized, and homogenized. When dairy is pure, organic, and fresh it's a good source of nutrition when used properly and in moderation. Also, the book says you should eat dairy OR fish as a supplement to a vegan diet, which makes sense when you look at the traditional diets of native cultures around the world - I don't know of any that are purely vegan. Rudolph Ballentine seems to be a very wise author with a lot of grounded perspective on holistic nutrition.