DragonRising Publishing

  Subtitled 'the Energy Self-Help Guide for Surviving Life's Challenges' this book is recommended by William Bloom as 'valuable and encouraging for anyone on the path of healing and spiritual development'. As that should apply to all Christian disciples, I read it with interest.

Sally Topham, a former actress and now a practitioner of Reiki and other New Age healing techniques, offers a 'toolkit' of techniques which have helped her find peace, energy and healing. Some of these are ancient (paying attention to dreams, theories about energy flow, singing, breathing, relaxation, walking, diet and exercise, writing a journal, and so on). Others are newer and bring together neuroscience and older techniques – Energy Transformation, EmoTrance, and so on.

What interests (and depresses) me is that, although the author seems to come from a Christian background, her sources are all drawn from Eastern and New Age teachers. Only one church (St James's. Piccadilly) is mentioned in the index of spiritual resources. That is no reflection on the author, I feel, but a deep indictment of the Church, which has largely refused to engage with a growing spirituality which has developed over the last 50 years.

Topham describes excellent methods of contemplation and intercession that are perfectly at home in the Christian tradition, for example; but I blink a little to find Jesus mentioned in the same breath as an idol, and wonder why such a gulf has appeared between people who seek authentic spiritual development?

Topham's toolkit is not mine, but I share the same convictions of Christian theology and science. They both remind us that we are embodied creatures. Our mortal creatureliness matters, and the Church might dig deeper into its own wisdom to offer something to a generation which seeks healing, connection, love and salvation by any other name.  

Terence Handley MacMath, The Sign & Home Words - the nationwide Church magazine supplement, www.ChurchTimes.co.uk/