Each year, millions of consumers visit their family physician. Often this experience leaves them with frustration, fear, and unanswered questions. Their dissatisfaction has led many to seek out other forms of health care.

Alternative medicine has been practiced for centuries - and today its acceptance is skyrocketing. The use of alternative medicine allows the consumer the freedom to choose what type of health care they feel would help benefit their illness. They can become experts by reading a book, surfing the Internet, or attending a local seminar.

In THE AMERICAN HOLISTIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION COMPLETE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, readers will discover a more in-depth look at the various alternative therapies of Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, naturopathic medicine, homeopathy, mind/body medicine, osteopathic medicine, chiropractor, massage therapy, and bodywork.

One of the key elements of this book that I found so fascinating was the use of true-to-life success stories of people who had tried one of these time old methods and found it cured or helped with what ailed them. It even gave me the opportunity to learn the benefits and the cost of each one of the treatments. This book has been a wonderful resource in helping me write my college thesis paper. I feel anyone who is looking for a better understanding of any or all of these alternative therapies will not find a more informative book.

Collinge takes the "hoodoo" out of alternative medicines and provides a very clear and practical guide to the various treatments. His inclusion of case studies is particularly effective in demonstrating what one could expect from a form of treatment. A very worthwhile reference for anyone concerned about health

William Collinge, M.P.H., ph.D has worked at Harvard's Mind/Body Institute and U.C.(Berkely). In this set of two tapes, he both lectures and guides meditations.

Tape 1, Side A: Contains a lecture, starting with a description of what a cancerous cell is, how the immune system functions to maintain a healthy body, current findings about the interconnection of the immune and nervous systems. The negative effects of stress on the immune system are discussed and East/West techniques are introduced. Finally he gives very convincing evidence that daily practice produces cumulative beneficial results. Side B: Starts with "watching the breath" and segues into enhancing the fighting ability of the immune system.

Tape 2 contains two guided meditations. Side A: contains a total body relaxation technique. Side B: Contains an interesting meditation that starts with the body and progresses to spiritual ideas, with additional emphasis on constructing a personal health plan.

The meditations are strongly guided (mildly hypnotic), which is useful if one is not feeling well, or has little experience in meditation. Although designed with the cancer patient in mind, the ideas are general. I would recommend these tapes for anyone with a serious health problem or for anyone searching for a strong core on which to build a personal health plan.

This book will give you HOPE! Yes, it was written seven years ago, but its message is timeless and VERY essential. It gives the general medical information you need, along with some names of supportive organizations. More importantly, through case studies, Mr. Collinge proves that recovery is indeed possible and probable. As someone who SUFFERS from CFIDS, I have read a lot of publications on the subject- I would recommend this book above anything else. It gives the hope, based on a solid foundation, that we all need.

Collinge catalogs a combination of myth, magic, apocryphal stories, and dubious references. He builds these into a house of cards which purports to support a theory that forms of "energy" exist which have one thing in common - they can't be measured. Nor can the supposed effects of any of these be predicted, with repeatable experiments. No wonder they are overlooked by science!

Collinge never expresses any real doubt about these sometimes contradictory approaches. Just one egregious example - he catalogs and then expands on the so-called "Mars effect". In doing so, he completely ignores the statistical analysis which shows that this effect is non-existent. Yet, he urges the reader to take seriously all sorts of nonsense, from Feng Shui to homeopathy.

Nothing is too ridiculous or worthless for Collinge to use as an example of the reality of his specious ideas.

If you want to understand the minds of those who believe anything they read, hear, or receive in email chain letters, read this book. Better yet, read "Why People Believe Weird Things"
by Michael Shermer.

If you would rather make good use of your time, take a look at the even more amazing (but true!) stories in books such as "The Elegant Universe", or anything by Stephen Hawking.

If you are just learning about the unseen energies around us, this is the book for you. If you have studied Feng Shui, Reiki, or any of the other topics covered in this book, you will at best be bored, at worst find "inaccuracies" (most a matter of opinion or preference) and overgeneralizations. It is a wonderful starting point though, and does a fine job of tying many different but related topics together. Start here, and then graduate to more advanced and detailed texts.

This book gives an excellent overview of energies and forces that are currently not recognized by the mainstream of scientific research. I share the previous reviewer's scepticism at the author's detailed knowledge of the many topics he writes about, so I would not recommend this book to someone who seeks to study a particular topic in detail. However, as an introduction or survey of the vast field of esoteric energies, it is more than adequate.