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BOOKS Reviewed by Ruth Parnell THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF PLANTS by Stephen Harrod Buhner Bear & Co., USA, 2004 ISBN 1-59143-035-6 (318pp tpb) Availability: Australia— Brumby Books, tel (03) 9761 5535; USA—Inner Traditions, http://www. innertraditions.com n this insightful study of the natural world, herbalist and poet Stephen Buhner argues that science will not progress if it continues to rely on analytical, linear, reductionist, deterministic and materialistic modes of cognition. The way forward is through an holistic, intuitive, "depth" mode that is more in line with how indigenous peoples gain knowledge of the world around them. His intention is to open us up to the idea that the heart is an organ of perception and intelli- gence, a brain that feels, that operates in physical, mental, emotional and spiritual planes. Native peoples and sensitive indi- viduals through the ages have been able to learn directly from plants—that is, they learned the uses of plants as medicines from the plants themselves, not through mere trial and error—and to do so they had to use heart-centred perception. For the sake of explanation Buhner takes an analytical approach in the first half ("Systole") of The Secret Teachings of Plants, but he discusses information that's at the cutting edge of science, dealing with the nonlinearity of nature, self-organisation of life and bioenergetics as well as specifics of the heart as a multidimensional organ. The second half ("Dystole") takes us on an inward journey into nature and the nature of @ REVIEWS ourselves, and includes snippets of wisdom from remarkable people who have learned from direct heart perception—Goethe, for instance, who studied plant metamorphosis. Buhner suggests that biognosis, this "knowledge of life", is an inherent aspect of our humanness and something we all have the capacity to develop; so he provides exer- cises to help us become more attuned and better able to "gather knowledge from the heart of the world" about everything from our physical selves to the environment at large. In reality, this heart intelligence is a way of being and it allows an intimate sense of connectedness with nature. Experiment with Buhner's advice and you're bound to feel and be more alive! or not, so we may as well call them "nanobes". Signs of calcium build-up in the body can be a signal of impending disease including tumour development, but if they're so bound up in the disease precondition, what would happen if we could dissolve them? Or should we be tackling the nanobes that are at the heart of these calcium phos- phate deposits? Breakthrough clinical studies are going on around the world, utilising combinations comprising the chelator EDTA, the antibiot- ic tetracycline and a cocktail of "nutraceuti- cals". The authors argue that if success is being had in reversing the symptoms of the most intransigent diseases of our times, then doctors should be much better informed by health authorities about their benefits and these treatments should be widely available. It's not so long ago that the bacterial source of stomach ulcers was discovered. There's much to be learnt about prevention, too, in this "explosive" book. (Also see Mulhall's article in this issue.) THE CALCIUM BOMB by Douglas Mulhall and Katja Hansen The Writers’ Collective, Rhode Island, USA, 2005 ISBN 1-59411-101-4 (228pp hc) Availability: The Writers’ Collective, tel 800 497 0037 (toll free in North America); Amazon.com ne thing that's common to Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, psoriasis and a host of other illnesses is cal- cification: the build-up of calcium phos- phate deposits in the blood, blood vessels or organs. Until fairly recently, these deposits have been noticed but ignored as having a role to play in the disease process itself. So what's behind this calcification? According to authors Douglas Mulhall and Katja Hansen, writing in The Calcium Bomb, the invaders at the heart of these deposits are "nanobacteria"—although they're so microscopic that even the frontier scientists aren't sure whether they're bacteria CALCIUM BON NEXUS = 65 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2005 www.nexusmagazine.com