cover image This Is for Everyone: Universal Principles of Healing and the Jewish Mystics

This Is for Everyone: Universal Principles of Healing and the Jewish Mystics

Douglas Goldhamer, Rabbi Douglas Goldhamer. Larson Publications, $14.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-943914-93-0

An unusual pair of collaborators have produced this manual for curing illness through prayer and meditation. Goldhamer is a Reform rabbi in Skokie, Ill., where his congregation consists largely of deaf people. Stengel, a Catholic, is a social worker in private practice who teaches at Northwestern University. In 1982, Goldhamer was told that he had a rare disease that required amputation of his leg. Refusing to accept this prescription, he sought out an Orthodox rabbi who taught the value of healing prayer. After seven months of regular sessions during which he learned to pray with intensity and total focus, he was cured. Several years later, Stengel, suffering from depression and anxiety, was successfully treated by Goldhamer, who asserted that the therapeutic power of prayer and meditation cuts across all religious boundaries. They decided to make this universal approach available to everyone. The material is presented in nine chapters, each following the same three-part format. Goldhamer leads with a ""Universal Principle."" Stengel then explains this as a ""Liberating Concept."" Finally, the rabbi offers a ""How To"" section in which he sets forth the actual techniques of prayer and meditation. These involve candles, special breathing, visualizations and repetitions, sometimes based on mystical Kabbalah concepts. The text includes stories from the Bible and Talmud, as well as examples of cases in which spiritual healing achieved cures. Skeptics may raise eyebrows at some of the book's more fantastic claims about miraculous healings, but the authors' ecumenical approach and practical how-to instructions should appeal to a broad readership. (Nov.)