Review of “Self-Empowerment: Nine Things the 19th Century Can Teach Us About Living in the 21st,” by B. Anne Gehman and Ellen Ratner, 2012. Cleveland, OH: Changing Lives Press. Paper, 310 pages.
This book is an interesting compilation of the accounts of nine different spiritual persons from the 19th century who seemed to have a unique handle on a variety of physical and mental health issues. They shared one thing in common: the ability to convince others of the power of their skills and knowledge about special realms.
More a story of mediums and writers, this book is really not so much about self-empowerment as we would typically think about it. The book is also not directly about self-help in the more popular terms many consider the phrase to mean.
Instead, the book is about nine different schools of thought about healing, self-reflection, speaking to the departed, learning to recover from illnesses, and accepting hypnotism as a means to curing medical and emotional problems.
This is not a guide about modern self-help but more a series of accounts of experts in the past who brought it about in their terms. One example is James Freeman Clarke, who spoke of “self-culture” or the need and ability of persons to train and define themselves. This process included 12 areas in life in which persons needed to develop, from education to hope and harmony.
Another example is Yogi Ramacharaka, who worked in metaphysical healing and who delineated four types of breathing important for good health. Fear and worry are two reasons for illness to begin, according to this spiritual healer. The key is to understand this idea and move toward better health. In his spiritual way, he served as an author to several books that enjoyed high readership.
Clairvoyance experts, Pascal Beverly Randolph, M.D., and Jesse Charles Fremont Grumbine, taught people to see with greater clarity. Dr. Randolph was famous for some of her adult topics she worked with, and Mr. Grumbine was famous for his connections to the unphysical world.
Frank Haddock focused on helping people to train their senses to heighten will power. His training of the will included several activities for better observing the world, and he attempted to open up people’s senses by following rules step-by-step. One example is entering a room, focusing on an object, and then studying it, thinking of its origin, reasoning through its purpose…
…This is meant to get persons to better focus on the sight they use but take for granted.
The authors have experience in the realms discussed above. Reverend Gehman is founder and pastor of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, having as a child already begun to accept psychic experiences into her life. Ellen Ratner is an experienced journalist and is also the co-founder and vice president of Changing Lives Press.
The authors show an interesting look into the past when self-help movements were much more magical and the responses to them were a lot more dramatic.
All in all, this is a very entertaining book about things spiritual and because of its historical information especially. I would recommend this book as an interesting departure from one’s regular reading list, as it was for me.