“Quantum” has been an overused word in alternative health. However this book - first published in 1989 and at the height of the quantum ‘craze’ - has provided many with their first - and often most profound - understanding of their illnesses, the connections between mind and body, and ultimately their cures.

Revealingly, Chopra’s full book title is “Quantum Healing: Exploring the Fronteirs of Mind/Body Medicine”, and it is this byline which is a more descriptive of the contents. It could equally be called “Ayurveda : Healing the Body and the Mind”, because what it does is look at how the body is intimately linked to the mind - in much more fundamental and physiological ways than merely “affected by it” - and how bringing these two into balance can ‘end the war’ between them that is the cause of disease.

Deeprak Chopra is perhaps the leading candidate for alternative health ‘guru’, however in this book it is his attention to scientific medicine, facts, and understanding that is equally communicated as Eastern approaches. A practicing Western as well as Ayurvedic doctor, the two disciplines uncertainly circle each other in the author’s words, and in the 200-odd pages. However the core of the book is that the body - and the patient - heals themselves, and Chopra deflects any credit for cures from him (as doctor) to the patient. Getting the patient to realize this is the whole of his message for healing.

I can highly recommend this book. One of the things it first does, is lay out the sometimes drastic consequences Western medicines can have on the body; setting up a chain reaction of bodily failures (most usually including the immune system), which can have catastrophic effects - much more serious than the simple “side effects” we are sometimes warned about. An alternative that ends, rather than escalates, such conflicts is the aim of this book. It is a true ‘nonviolence’ philosophy for healing.

More serious, then, than even the bodily effects of a chemical attack on disease is the psychological effects. Encouraging fear, the patient often further fuels the discord between ‘themselves’ and their bodies, making true peace and recovery more difficult to find.

The treatments Chopra mentions in the book (recounted in many case histories from his clinic in Lancaster, Massachusetts) are often a change of diet, Ayurvedic herbs, meditations (which we will publish in future articles), and specific daily routines, including basic yoga exercises. Western treatments are sometimes encouraged, sometimes discouraged. Here ‘Western treatments’ also includes blood and other tests - which importantly are recognized for the effect these have on a patients’ total well being.

The unifying theme is to bring, every day, a ’settled, restful state’ as a foundation for true healing. Chopra says:

In Ayurveda, a level of total, deep relaxation is the most important precondition for curing any disorder. The underlying concept is that the body knows how to maintain balance unless thrown off by disease (later he mentions other stresses); therefore, if one wants to restore the body’s own healing ability, everything should be done to bring it back to balance.

We will add more thoughts about this book in the coming weeks. Until then, we would be interested in your thoughts - have you read it? And what did you take away from it?

Quantum Healing is available on Amazon.