Insight to Heal

Mark Graves has twenty-five years of experience in researching and modelling cognitive, biological, and religious dimensions of the person, and has published forty technical and scholarly works in those areas, including Mind, Brain, and the Elusive Soul (2008). He has taught at Baylor College of Medicine; the University of California, Berkeley; Santa Clara University; and the Graduate Theological Union, including on healing and science at the Pacific School of Religion. He is currently Research Fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary.

• List of TablesPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPART I Religious Experience of NatureIntroduction to Part I1 Awakening Experience2 Theological Reflection3 Experience and Nature4 Nature's MindPART II Human Systems of SpiritualityIntroduction to Part II5 Discerning Experience6 Spiritual Communities7 Human Systems8 Nature's EmergencePART III Real Possibility of Beautiful HealingIntroduction to Part III9 Experience of Beauty10 Theology of Beauty11 Forms of Nature12 Nature's HealingBibliographyGlossarySubject IndexScripture Index

"Mark Graves' new book is a marvel of creative synthesis. He brings together the latest scientific research on suffering and combines it with a deeply sensitive understanding of Christian theology to produce a powerful guide to healing at all levels-physical, mental, spiritual, and cultural. The emphasis on beauty is especially valuable as a reminder that true healing involves a transformative reorientation of the person toward life, nature, and experience. This book offers wonderful resources for therapists, ministers, chaplains, doctors, nurses, and anyone involved in health care. Beyond those practical benefits, Graves has given us a thought-provoking meditation on the twenty-first-century relationship between science and theology."Kelly Bulkely, Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union"This book reads like a contemporary version of Augustine's Confessions. It is grounded in a religious conversion that resulted over time in a remarkable change of life for the individual. Likewise, it incorporates a surprising amount of contemporary philosophy, theology, and natural science (in this case, neuroscience) into a hierarchical system based on the notion of creativity and emergence of new forms. Finally, like the Confessions it takes time to think through and digest."Joseph Bracke, SJ. Professor Emeritus of Theology, Xavier University