Friday, June 26, 2009
Reviews for The Western Book of Crossing Over
REVIEWS for The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side.
Here are editorial and review comments about this book:
Reviewers' Quotes:
"A book that's one of the most amazing I have ever come across–and for two reasons and not just one. One reason is the fact of the book: written in conversation with the "other side"—with a life-companion who is no longer here but, it appears, still is, and has been over many incarnations, the author's partner.… The other reason is the content. An expression of the purest, clearest love–for everyone and everything, as our task and mission on Earth and throughout our lifetimes. A book to read, to marvel at, to learn from, and to heed in all that we do."—Ervin László
"Now, through their binding love, Sheldon and Lorraine Stoff offer direct testimony to life and consciousness never before so clearly articulated. Through practical answers to practical questions, the Stoffs have succeeded in forging a bridge of consciousness between then and now and what will be."—John L. Mayfield, DC, author of Body Intelligence
"Throughout human history there have been monumental questions which have bubbled up through the elixir of life.• Why am I born?• What is the meaning of my life?• Why does my very being resonate with that one person?• Will I reconnect with relatives and loved ones after they have died?• Will I feel pain when dying?• What will happen to me when I die?• Will I come back again?"For anyone who has sought answers to the above and other questions about life and consciousness, finally there is a fountain of testimony through which flows reason, meaning, and purpose on many levels."There have been guidepost books which have attempted answers: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, even The American Book of the Dead, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's On Death and Dying, Chopra's Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, Sogyal Rimpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying. But are they faint whispers in gathering simple truths for consciousness today? The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side is not esoteric mythological journeying. Now, through their binding love, Sheldon and Lorraine Stoff offer direct testimony to life and consciousness never before so clearly articulated. Through practical answers to practical questions, the Stoffs have succeeded in forging a bridge of consciousness between then and now and what will be."—Jon R.G. Turner and Troya Turner, co-founders and co-directors of the Whole-Self Discovery and Development Institute International, and authors of Birth, Life, and More Life: Reactive Patterning Based on Prebirth Events
"Anyone hungry to know more about the ultimate nature and purpose of human life would be lucky indeed to find this guidebook! The lucky part is holding in your hands a Google map of the trail, a precisely written journal of someone who has just made the journey, or the answers to the final exam before seeing the questions. For this little book on the biggest subject in the world we are indebted to a scholarly, disciplined, and trustworthy pair of Soul Mates, one on earth and the other in heaven communicating back and forth--a rare and priceless perspective on the human odyssey."
David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D, author, The Mind of your Newborn Baby (3rd ed.) North Atlantic Books, now in 14 translations.
Editorial Review:
This reflective series of conversations with his wife Lorraine after her death enables author Sheldon Stoff to take readers on a journey through the process of living, dying, and living again—in the afterlife. Insights gleaned from both Western and Eastern traditions, especially those of Kabbalah, provide a universalist, non-sectarian context for Stoff's experiences. With chapters addressing reincarnation, fulfilling one's life mission, life review, and the significance of finding one's soul mate, The Western Book of Crossing Over presents a transcendent view of human consciousness and what it means to be alive. Packed with fascinating details about the afterlife, The Western Book of Crossing Over builds on the foundation laid by popular psychic authors Sylvia Browne and John Edward, and serves as a passionate reminder of the importance of keeping an awareness of the afterlife in order to live fully and authentically on this side of the life-death divide. Eleven original drawings of the Other Side based on the conversations between the author and his wife by their son Jesse provide a fascinating visual counterpoint to Lorraine's descriptions of the afterlife and her uplifting, ultimately hopeful and joyful messages of love.
Packed with fascinating details about the afterlife, The Western Book of Crossing Over builds on the foundation laid by popular psychic authors Sylvia Browne and John Edward, and serves as a passionate reminder of the importance of keeping an awareness of the afterlife in order to live fully and authentically on this side of the life-death divide. Eleven original drawings of the Other Side based on the conversations between the author and his wife by their son Jesse provide a fascinating visual counterpoint to Lorraine's descriptions of the afterlife and her uplifting, ultimately hopeful and joyful messages of love.
About the Author
Sheldon Stoff, EdD, spent most of his career in academia as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education. A former Education Department Chair at Adelphi University, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue with inspiration from his mentor, the renowned philosopher Martin Buber.
Barbara’s Foreword to The Western Book of Crossing Over….
Foreword
By Barbara Smith Stoff
Although he had been fascinated with the concept of reincarnation—having begun, while still in his teens, with studies from the New York Psychic Society—Sheldon Stoff, who is now retired from university teaching in education and philosophy, had never thought to ask a question regarding the career and whereabouts of the soul between incarnations. In this book, he keeps company with such as C. S. Lewis (A Grief Observed), in that he finds himself in continuing contact with his deceased wife, Lorraine. During these surprising communications, Lorraine Marshak Stoff, who was married to Sheldon for over fifty years, describes her experience of passing over, and then proceeds to go into details about the soul's ongoing experience and progress between lives.
Asking a new kind of question can precipitate a profound change in our world view, and in our understanding of the entire cosmos. When we change our question, we begin to move forward in comprehension and toward greater spiritual evolution.
Today it seems that the whole world must come to terms with a multi-national hydra-headed existential face-off. Thus it becomes, at this point in history, imperative that we work hard to educate ourselves, in order to gain some insight and understanding of our idea of ourselves as human beings in a very large universe, and how that idea is interpreted and played out on the increasingly communal world stage.
In our efforts to widen and deepen our concepts and understanding of life and meaning, it may be helpful if we place our inquiries within the larger questions posed by general systems theory. It may indeed be helpful to direct an inquiring look at general systems theory and the nature of systems and how and why they organize themselves, and how they may change toward a more benevolent evolution.
Ervin Laszlo, often known as the father of systems science, says that as we now face a choice between "collapsing into chaos and evolving into a sustainable, ethical global community" the voices of the few, even the individual, can have a powerful effect for change. He says, in The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads:
Scientists would say we are living in a 'decision window'—a transitory period in the evolution of a system during which any input or influence, however small, can 'blow up' to transform existing trends and bring new patterns and processes into existence. This is similar to the often-discussed 'butterfly effect' discovered by U.S. meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s….In periods of relative stability, the consciousness of individuals does not play a decisive role in the behavior of society. But when a society reaches the limits of its stability and turns chaotic, it becomes super-sensitive—responsive to even small fluctuations such as changes in some people's values, beliefs, world views and aspirations. Many signs point to the fact that we are entering a new period of ecological and social instability, a time rife with chaos but also a window of exceptional freedom to decide our destiny.
Reading history upon tragic history, and trying to comprehend truly and fairly, we think that now is the time to offer thoughts about strategies for a deeper healing at the heart of humankind. With Martin Buber and Vaclav Havel, we plead for benevolent evolution in our consciousness, in our understanding of who we are, and where we are going. Are we evolving toward understanding and partnership?
Gregg Braden writes of "the existence of a field of energy—The Divine Matrix—that provides the container, as well as a bridge and mirror, for everything that happens between the world within us and the one outside of our bodies." Drawing upon theorists such as David Bohm and others within the discipline of quantum physics, he describes "deeper or higher planes of creation that hold the template for what happens in our world. It's from these subtler levels of reality that our physical world originates." He says:
"The implication of both quantum theory and the ancient texts is that in the unseen realms we create the blueprint for the relationships, careers, successes, and failures of the visible world. From this perspective, the Divine Matrix works like a great cosmic screen that allows us to see the nonphysical energy of our emotions and beliefs (our anger, hate, and rage; as well as our love, compassion, and understanding) projected in the physical medium of life."
If we look to ancient wisdom traditions and metaphysical writings, we find abundant theory on soul development. Having read deeply in the fields of esoterica for some forty years, I am excited to find validation in the fact that contemporary physicians, psychotherapists, and educators are now providing scientific support to ancient wisdom teachings regarding what we might call journeys of the soul. In particular, through the enduring and painstaking work of researchers such as David Chamberlain, Brian Weiss, and Michael Newton, there is now an expanding body of thought in the exploration of controversial issues involving our understanding of consciousness.
You can imagine my excitement and feeling of good fortune when I found myself in face-to-face dialogue with an individual who had the personal experience of an extended conversation with beings on the "other side."
Sheldon's between-the-worlds dialogue with Lorraine can offer a response to essential questions and, as well, encourage us to keep on asking for more enlightenment regarding our situation and way of progress.
In his introduction, Gregg Braden goes on to say, "The Divine Matrix is written for those of you whose lives bridge the reality of our past with the hope of our future. It is you who are being asked to forgive and find compassion in a world reeling from the scars of hurt, judgment, and fear. The key to surviving our time in history is to create a new way of thinking while we're still living in the conditions that threaten our existence."
To act in accord, to make a bridge to new ways of thinking, and in the belief that the reported experiences of individual journeys in consciousness can be of great significance now—at this point in time with the world in a general state of confrontation and conflict—we offer this story. It is within this frame of reflection that Sheldon's book, The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations With The Other Side, can be considered as making a vital statement for our progress toward a sustainable future here on Earth.
Barbara Smith Stoff
Tucson, Arizona
April, 2007
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Judgment of the Birds
As I watch the news, I reflect upon the role Twitter is playing in the shaping of world events, I remember the news images of the hotel bombing in India last fall...the images of flocks of birds flying back and forth in front of the cameras...the bombed hotel in the background. It was reported that Twitter posts played the first alert role regarding that tragedy too. And I am remembering another story about birds which comes to us from the journals of that keen observer and faithful chronicler of our long evolutionary journey, Loren Eiseley, as he wrote in his most poignant The Immense Journey about the songbirds' protest in the face of imminent danger. He called it "the judgment of the birds"...
I have said that I saw a judgment upon life, and that it was not passed by men. Those who stare at birds in cages or who test minds by their closeness to our own may not care for it. It comes from far away out of my past, in a place of pouring waters and green leaves. I shall never see an episode like it again if I live to be a hundred, nor do I think that one man in a million has ever seen it, because man is an intruder into such silences. The light must be right, and the observer must remain unseen. No Man sets up such an experiment. What he sees, he sees by chance.You may put it that I had come over a mountain, that I had slogged through fern and pine needles for half a long day, and that on the edge of a little glade with one long, crooked branch extending across it, I had sat down to rest with my back against a stump. Through accident I was concealed from the glade, although I could see into it perfectly.
The sun was warm there, and the murmurs of forest life blurred softly away into my sleep. When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in his beak.
The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling's parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties, drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.
No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death.
And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.
The sighing died. It was then that I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painfully fluttering, another took the song, and then another the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Til suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten the raven, for they were the singers of life, and not of death. (Loren Eiseley in The Immense Journey, 1946)
Today, under brooding shadow and countering any prediction of doom, one voice after another lifts to remind us that a new world is being built within the hearts of people all over the world. These singers of life, while listening to the lovely promptings from the deep within, and laboring to prove the validity of their cries through the study of sciences, systems theories, and a profound spiritual awakening, are swelling in number as the chorus begins to resound throughout. With such a gathering of voices, if, as many physicists say, the world is truly built on sound, then a new and better world is about to be born. It is our hope that our efforts here will blend into the swelling chorus of those "singers of life."Barbara Smith Stoff
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
