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A Jungian-trained psychiatrist explores ancient Navaho methods of healing that use vibrant imagery to bring the pysche into harmony with natural forces.
List of contents
Navaho Symbols of Healing A Jungian Exploration of Ritual, Image, & Medicine Note
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Symbolic Healing
2. Guardians of the Symbol
3. Navaho Religion: The Constituent Parts
4. Navaho Religion: The Whole in Action
5. Fear of Possession
6. Return to the Origins
7. The Ritual Control of Evil
8. Death and Rebirth: Process of Renewal
9. Mandalas of Healing and the Pollen Path
10. The Navaho Synthesis
11. Symbolic Healing: Ancient and Modern
Bibliography
About the author
Donald Sandner, M.D. is a San Francisco psychiatrist with a private practice in Jungian analysis. He is a former president of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.
Summary
In this original and superbly researched work, a Jungian-trained psychiatrist explores ancient Navaho methods of healing--methods that use ritual and vibrant imagery to bring the psyche into harmony with the natural forces that surround it. Through his interactions with Navaho medicine men, Sandner conveys the rigors of their training and the complexities of their purification and evocation rites, including the use of sand paintings as healing mandalas and the esoteric meaning of the pollen path.
Presents the basic principles of Navaho healing:
Return to the origins
Confrontation and manipulation of evil
Death and rebirth
Restoration of the universe
Challenges Western medicine in its search for a more holistic and humane healing art.
Cloth edition of this title was published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Additional text
"In this well-researched volume the reader gets an authentic look at the combined power of Navajo religion, medicine and art."
