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Mobile Guerrilla Force: With The Special Forces In War Zone D

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Mobile Guerrilla Force: With The Special Forces In War Zone D
James C. Donahue
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0312961642

â€¢ A ten-step technique, based on the teachings of the Toltecs, that allows the reader to heal from traumatic life events and emerge with new energy and direction.

â€¢ Introduces the practice of Recapitulation, a method used by the indigenous people of Mexico to restore balance to the psyche.

â€¢ Ideal for people suffering the effects of childhood trauma, broken relationships, abuse, depression, anxiety, and other psychological stresses

What if it were possible to revisit the traumatic or difficult events of our past and emerge renewed, re-energized, and healed from the damage left within us by these events? The practice of Recapitulation can do just this through a series of energetic exercises that can ultimately free us from the repetitive emotional conflicts and persistent negative patterns that often result from trauma.Â

Victor Sanchez shares with the reader both the philosophy and practical applications of this ancient Toltec technique. Anyone who has lived through a long, difficult experience--perhaps a serious illness, broken relationship, sexual abuse, or a childhood spent in a divisive family environment--can benefit from this process. Recapitulation makes it possible to actually relive and resolve the events that have caused emotional distress. In this clear and straightforward workbook, the author guides readers through the ten steps of Recapitulation and invites them to experience the powerful and positive new energy that results from healing the wounds of the past. The Toltec Path of Recapitulation offers an ancient ritual of renewal for the contemporary world.

Carlos Castaneda as well as Taisha Abelar have already emphasized and explained in great length the reasons why should one recapitulate and the procedures for a succesful recapitulation. In this book by Sanchez, I do not find anything new to add to these techniques, nothing. Some of the drawings reminded me of those that appear in books for 3rd grade, as the explanations were obvious, these drawings appeared to me almost ridiculous (how hard is it to figure out the following: inhale moving your head from left to right and exhale from right to left. Do we need a picture for that!? please..).

Another difference between the authors mentioned above and Sanchez's book is that this book is filled to the brim with personal experiences from others, and a lot of claims that lack evidence and proper back-up.

If you have read Castaneda et all, you are not missing anything by not reading this book.

After the book had arrived I took a quick cursory glance at its content and two facts jumped into plain view:

- the ridiculous large space between each line

- the pseudo-scientific drawings that are laughable

On the backcover there is a picture of Victor, looking like a man whose entire posture radiates the self-importance that Don Juan warns us for. A very bad omen.

So, when I started reading the book I already had a bad feeling about it. Still, I decided to give Victor a chance and to suspend judgement.

In the intro Victor puts his self-importance on display by shamelessly bragging about his "accomplishements". About how he travelled all over the globe giving workshops. His entire presentation of himself indicating that as far as Victor is concerned this alone qualifies him as being justified to assume the status of "One Who Is In The Know When It Comes To Nagualism". Knowledge that he is about to reveal in the coming chapters.

I can be very short about what Victor reveals in those coming chapters: absolutely nothing that the attentive reader of the Carlos Castaneda books didn't already know. Which I found shocking as I was so naive as to think that to write a book on a topic that has already been written on is only impeccable / justifiable when the author can add something new to what has already been said.

Also, I do not find Victor's stories of "moments of revelation" that participants of his recapitulation workshops had, remotely interesting or original as Carlos Castaneda already provided ample examples of spontaneous recollections evoked via recapitulation in his own books. I doubt anyone will. Yet, Victor generously uses these "illustrating" stories throughout the book. Undoubtedly to use them as cheap filling.

Another strategy he follows to fill up the book, a book that with normal space would have been substantially thinner, is the usage of the above mentioned pseudo-scientific drawings.

An example: Victor tells the reader how to recapitulate: inhale as your head moves to the left, the inhalation ends when you look over your left shoulder. As the head moves to the right exhale untill you look over your right shoulder. Easy to understand, right? Victor disagrees. So he provides a caricature drawing of a head facing forward and with an arrow to the left. That is to help the reader who has trouble finding his / her left. Beside that drawing is another drawing, one with a head looking over the left shoulder and an arrow to the right. Redundant is a word that comes to mind.

The drawings in conjunction with Victor's habit of addressing the reader as if they are incapable of rational thought, leaves one no choice but to conclude that Victor intended his book not for warriors, but for imbecils.

Another soure point is Victor's habit of never substantiating up his claims.

An example: according to Victor it is possible to procreate and not have a hole in your luminous sphere for each child that you fathered / conceived. Something that is in direct conflict with what Don Juan claims to be the case. Which I have no problem with, but I do expect a bit more from Victor than just claiming that and then cheerfully move on to something else. Next he tells how he himself has fathered children and assures us that he has no holes in his luminous sphere. Again, without backing it up, except that he has "seen" no holes. Taking into consideration that Victor fails to provide even one "seeing" experience I am sceptic about his ability to "see", leaving me with no alternative but to conclude that Victor's "seeing" is more wishfull thinking than actual "seeing", and that Victor is into some serious denial when it comes to the fact that he is incomplete / has a luminous sphere that has a hole in it for each of the children he fathered.

Another claim of Victor that leaves one most unsatisfied is his claim that celibacy, advocated by Don Juan and the warriors of his lineage, is not necessary on the grounds of sex being necessary or else mankind would become extint! Someone should tell Victor to wake up and smell the roses. Its not exactly that we are living in a world with 6 billion warriors, right? As Don Juan stated so clearly: warriors leave procreation to the non-warriors. Clearly Victor doesn't fall in the first category.

As already stated, the book minus the pseudo-scientific drawings, the overkill of "illustrating stories" of what participants of Victor's workshops experienced during their recapitulation, and the ridiculous large space, would have left about 20 pages. Which leaves me as a reader with the strong impression that Victor used all that as a strategy designed to give those 20 pages the appearance of a real book of normal length, when in fact he had no such thing to begin with.

It looks to me like Victor needed some cash and / or attenion and decided to write another book, regardless of the fact that he didn't have the material for one, at least not for a quality book, and as a result wrote this piece of junk. As a result he joined the merchants of the new millenium, not the warriors of the millenium.

In its essence, though, recapitulation is about going through all of the significant events in your life to (1) reclaim lost energy, or to (2) release unwanted energy, and ultimately to heal from it.

The idea is that the most people's energy body (or emotional self) is like a stressball that has lost some of its ability to regain its original shape. Most often, we act based not on the demands on the moment, but on traumas that occurred in the past. All of our relationships and interactions therefore have some kind of transference or projection (to borrow some Freudian terms).

The process of recapitulation involves remembering an event as intensely as you can, then making an active decision to heal from it, and using specific breathing techniques to help you achieve that.

Sanchez advocates doing a hard-core recapitulation, in which you list significant events in your entire life, build a box, and then recapitulate each event while in your box.

It probably sounds like a pretty different way to go about your self-healing. It certainly did to me at first, though the practicality of Sanchez's earlier work, The Teachings of Don Carlos, made me take a closer look. I'm glad I did.

Going mostly by the instructions in this book, I came up with a list and built a box and did a good deal of recapitulation. I've gotten a lot of personal insight and healing from this technique, and a lot of self-acceptance and forgiveness as well.

Let me make clear that if you don't have the time or energy to do the whole box thing (which for me was a big deal and a good bit of sweat), then you can still do recapitulation for specific events. In fact, I've gotten tons of mileage out of doing just that, without the box or anything. Doing that alone can result in a great deal of healing.

I've never been in therapy so I can't compare the results of this with any psychotherapeutic modalities. I have done some holotropic breathwork and dabbled in other healing methods.

All in all, I can say that I prefer recapitulation for its effectiveness and its simplicity -- yes, its simplicity. When it comes right down to it, recapitulation makes you take a hard look at what you're doing, and gives you the space to make decisions, and harnesses the breath and your intent to help you make that decision. Ultimately that's all you need to let go of pain.

If this method seems intense, that's because it is also very complete; but at its core it is very simple.

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Maya Glyphs (Reading the Past)
S. D. Houston
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520067711

This book, a translation of _El pasado indgena_, provides scholars and students with an important synthesis. The book, in an effort to preserve readability, lacks endnotes (an unfortunate decision in this reviewer's mind). The authors provide the first such overview book which goes beyond the boundaries of Mesoamerica. They argue that the three great culture areas (Aridamerica, Oasisamerica, and Mesoamerica) must be understood in relation to each other. It is a solid argument indeed. Even Mesoamerica cannot be understood without an analysis of shifting boundaries and its relationships with the other cultural areas. Yet, the problem that Lopez Austin and Lopez Lujan face is endemic to all such studies: the information on Aridamerica and Oasisamerica pales in comparison to that of Mesoamerica. Hence the book is primarily about Mesoamerica, as the other two culture areas really only influence the first chapter.

This book is well worth reading and provides some fascinating commentary. However, the authors' analyses would be helped by consulting the more recent colonial ethnohistories, which provide some more systematic analysis which could be useful, particularly in analyzing the late Postclassic societies. Certainly a consultation of recent works could allow the authors to engage in more of a critique of indigenous social structures on the eve of the Spanish conquest. The book also largely ignores gender differentiation (except for a very brief discussion of gender within religion). As recent works have shown, placing gender within historical analysis is always extremely relevant and useful. These considerations aside, the methodology used here, allowing students access to archaeological and historiographical debates while also providing a historical overview, is sound, and the authors present a highly readable and well reasoned account of indigenous Mexico before the Spanish conquest.

Mayan indigenous society in Guatemala and Mexico a thematic integrated unit on the contributions of the Maya both past and present : Fulbright-Hays Summer ... and Guatemala (SuDoc ED 1.310/2:449078)

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Mayan indigenous society in Guatemala and Mexico a thematic integrated unit on the contributions of the Maya both past and present : Fulbright-Hays Summer ... and Guatemala (SuDoc ED 1.310/2:449078)
Michelle Suchenski
Manufacturer: U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Educational Resources Information Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0001169NK

At the end of the eighteenth century the hasidic movement was facing an internal crisis: to what extent should the teachings of Baal Shem Tov and Maggid of Mezritch, with their implicit spiritual demands, be transmitted to the rank-and-file of the movement? Previously these teachings had been reserved for a small elite. It was at this point that the Habad school emerged with a communication ethos encouraging the transmission of esoteric to the broad reaches of the Jewish world. Communicating the Infinite explores the first two generations of the Habad school under R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi and his son R. Dov Ber and examines its early opponents.

Beginning with the different levels of communication in the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid and his disciples, Naftali Loewenthal traces the unfolding of the dialectic between the urge to transmit esoteric ideas and a powerful inner restraint. Gradually R. Shneur Zalman came to the fore as the prime exponent of the communication ethos. Loewenthal follows the development of his discourses up to the time of his death, when R. Dov Ber and R. Aaron Halevi Horowitz formed their respective "Lubavitch" and "Staroselye" schools. The author continues with a detailed examination of the teachings of R. Dov Ber, an inspired mystic. Central in his thought was the esoteric concept of self-abnegation, bitul, yet this combined with the quest to communicate hasidic teachings to every level of society, including women.

From the late eighteenth century onwards, the main problem for the Jewish world was posed by the fall of the walls of the social and political ghetto. Generally, the response was either to secularize, or abandon altogether, traditional Judaism or to retreat from the threatening modern world into enclave religiosity; by stressing communication, the Habad school opened the way for a middle range response that was neither a retreat into elitism nor an abandonment of tradition. Based on years of research from Hebrew and Yiddish primary source materials, Communicating the Infinite is a work of importance not only to specialists of Judaic studies but also to historians and sociologists.