Nature Spirits and What They Say

From:  Interviews with Verena Stael von Holstein – edited by Wolfgang Weirauch

Between March 1^st 2000 and February 28^th 2001 the interviewee spoke with seventeen nature spirits at her home in Germany, using telepathy. She discovered that they have ‘no human morality, but they know exactly how they can hurt and how they can help humans’. These elemental beings wanted to tell us, through Verena Stael von Holstein’s innate ability to converse with nature, that they are here, an important part of the natural world, and that we could not survive without them.

As this book has been translated from the original German it is a little hard going at times but, taking this into consideration, it is a fascinating insight into the elemental beings that some can perceive around us.

Published by:  Floris Books

http://www.florisbooks.co.uk/

ISBN: 0-86315-462-X

Reviewed by: Jane Stewart Adams

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Waking From Sleep

Why Awakening Experiences Occur and How to Make Them Permanent

By Steve Taylor

Walt Whitman, William Blake and William Wordsworth experienced shifts in consciousness that could be called peak experiences or altered states of consciousness. These moments, known by indigenous people, children, mystics and saints, provide a sense of expansiveness, egolessness and wellbeing. Steve Taylor has made a study of these experiences that can be induced in a number of ways. He divides them into two categories: HD (Homeostasis Disruption) which is a wild ecstasy state brought on by activity that disrupts our natural patterns, and can be produced by hunger, sleep deprivation, certain drugs, pain and breathing exercises (all of which have drawbacks) and ISLE states (Intensification and Stilling of Life Energy) brought on by meditation, sports, sexual activity, music, kundalini, near death experiences, satsang and ego detachment.

Those who have both these types of experiences describe an intense feeling of contentment, unification and an awareness of the immense beauty of the world. It is accompanied by a realisation that happiness is not achieved through status or the accumulation of material possessions. Steve Taylor describes present awareness as a state of ‘sleeping’ and the beautiful higher states of consciousness as ‘waking up’ to reality.

Reviewed by Wendy Stokes

ISBN 9 782848501799

 www.hayhouse.co.uk

www.steventaylor.talktalk.net

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