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Overview
The Theft of the Spirit is a book of hope - hope that by tapping into the ancient wisdom of Native Americans we can recapture the spirit we have allowed to be stolen and find spiritual health in a materialistic world. Carl A. Hammerschlag, the inspiring and successful author of The Dancing Healers, draws upon the richness of his experiences as a family doctor working with Native Americans to illustrate the importance of community and tradition and to show how through spiritual healing we can conquer the inevitable emotional pain and loss we all must endure in the course of living our lives. Rituals, symbols, and myths are the ways a culture shares its spiritual legacy, encourages community, and illuminates our deepest passion, awe, love, suffering, and pain. In The Theft of the Spirit. Dr. Hammerschlag paints a vivid portrait of the Hopi Indians - a people known for their deep spirituality and their elaborate ceremonies - and describes how the actual theft of sacred Hopi religious objects has contributed to the tribe's spiritual demise. A master storyteller, Hammerschlag shows how the Hopi experience is a microcosm for our society at large - and how when we, as individuals and as a civilization, lose faith in our governments, our churches, and our families, we become vulnerable and dispirited. The Theft of the Spirit is ripe with remarkable, moving, true-life experiences of people who faced ordinary traumas and extraordinary catastrophes and triumphed once they learned how to be the heroes of their own healing journeys. Through his stories, Hammerschlag shows how we can all grow beyond fear and illusion to a new strength of spirit and self when we face our uncertainties and create our own individual rites of passage. Each vignette is personal and redemptive and will move you to make your own life less painful and more significant. Each will challenge you to look beyond your old assumptions to new realities for a richer, more meaningful life.The successful author of The Dancing Healers draws on his firsthand experiences with Native American cultural rituals and traditions to show how we, too, can live our lives wisely in a materialistic world.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Hammerschlag ( The Dancing Healers ), for 14 years Chief of Psychiatry with the Indian Health Service, explains in this well-told memoir how he learned from Native Americans to make use of the energy source within ourselves for healing. If the author's explanation of the science of psychoneuroimmunology--which suggests that ``what you know matters less than what you feel''--is thin, his anecdotes are telling. One patient suffering from clenched jaws lost his pain and his anger after climbing a mountain and screaming obscenities. Hammerschlag recalls how a Native American healer, in teaching him to pray, caused him to lose his cynicism, and how the wishes of dying children remind us how to dream. His musings sometimes stray from the Native American base, but they include worthwhile advice: people should learn to find joy in small, daily things, and doctors should be wary that medical jargon obscures human feelings. Hammerschlag concludes wth a somber warning from the Hopi people, who predict that our ``obsession with seeking material goods'' will lead to our ruin. (July)Library Journal
Hammerschlag, who was for 14 years chief of psychiatry with the Indian Health Service, provides a deeply moving and entirely credible account of his experiences with native healers and their patients. Even more important, he discusses the lessons he learned from such encounters and reveals the wisdom of much of their treatment. He demonstrates humility and respect for native cultures; he learns the importance of treating the patient, not just the disease, of facilitating the growth of spirit as well as healing mind and body. This is a wonderful book for general readers, physicians, and other helping professionals. Recommended for public and seminary libraries.Pat Monaghan
So many Hopi religious objects have been sold (often, alas, by tribal people looking for quick cash) that entire cycles of ceremonies have fallen into desuetude. Why not just make new symbols, Hammerschlag innocently (maybe, in fact, ignorantly) asks a Hopi elder. Because, she tells him, if the people have sunk so low as to sell their religious heritage, making new objects won't fix their disorder of the spirit. This book of essays looks at some of the spiritual messages, especially those about physical and emotional healing, of Native American cultures. Hammerschlag does not, thank heaven, belong to that burgeoning tribe, the Wannabes, who exploit Native American religious material as wantonly as nineteenth-century ranchers exploited their land. A medical doctor, he gracefully interweaves his professional practice, his Jewish heritage, even his psychological quirks with stories of his many years in Hopiland in order to share a remarkable and generous spirit.Book Details
Published
November 1, 1993
Publisher
New York : Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Pages
176
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780671780234