Experience is a multifaceted phenomenon; a perusal of the selfhelp sources analyzed here reveals a vast variety of narratives of experience. Yet it always been fascinated by the choices performers make-why they pick certain songs to sing or stories to tell and how they decide what contexts would be appropriate or even ideal for performing certain items from their repertoire. Even more intriguing is the case of the performer who creates a narrative seemingly out of whole cloth from his or her own experience or observation and tailors that story to a very specific context, at least the first time it is told.

In an effort to consider why this situation does, we might ask first why the authors choose to include stories in the first place. The authors obviously have certain expectations. They assume above all that the stories will be effective in the didactic sense: stories will teach the lesson or make the point they intend.

Furthermore, authors know that people are more likely to believe in or trust information conveyed through the familiar format of a story, plus provides the author with an opportunity to introduce or repeat a point that is made elsewhere more directly without seeming to be repetitive and dull.

And, perhaps most telling of all, they know that stories help sell their books. People love reading stories , and, as with oral personal narratives, listeners tend to believe that someone speaking from personal experience is telling the truth.

A common type, is the earmarks of a story created to suit the requirements of the-.commentary that follows or precedes it, a "commentary-requires-story" form.

For example Wayne Dyer, author of Your Erroneous Zones, Pulling Your Own Strings (1978), The Sky's the Limit, What Do You Really Want for Your Children? (1985), You'll See It When You Believe It, Real Magic, Your Sacred Self (1995), Manifest Your Destiny, The Power of Intention (2004), and many other books, uses many such stories.

He has made the national best-seller list many times, and most of his books are still in print. The high number of personal didactic exempla in his works is, it seems, simply a result of his tendency to use stories whenever possible. For example, in one passage in You'll See It When You Believe It, Dyer is discussing the concept of giving rather than taking. To illustrate, he tells the reader that recently he backed off on a financial misunderstanding that cost him nearly two hundred dollars. But he relates the information as a story; he creates a narrative by casting the information into a sequential plot that can be manipulated to serve his point of illustration. Here is his story: I recently purchased an automobile and found after the closing that the dealer had added a charge of almost two hundred dollars into the contract, over and above the price that we had agreed upon. I did not discover this until I had returned home and looked over the final papers more carefully. For me, this was a perfect opportunity to practice all that I have been writing about in this book. Years ago, I probably would have been angry, felt cheated, and had an unpleasant exchange with the car dealer. Not this time. I simply called, and expressed my opinion to the salesman about what had happened, and explained that I did not feel that he had acted from integrity in the closing. I also talked to the owner, and I again expressed how I felt about it, without any anger or bitterness. We had a pleasant exchange, and the dealer apologized, but felt that he could not refund the money since we had signed the papers and after all a "deal is a deal." I told him that I did not respect this particular business practice, and I then let it go. I did not need to forgive him, since I was not owning any anger about the situation. I vowed I would look more carefully at contracts before closing in the future. That was the end of it. Until the following letter arrived some ten days later.

What you think about expands. Thus if your thoughts are on getting all that you can and beating the other guy who you believe is trying to do you in, then you are constantly thinking about, worrying about, and planning on the notion of deception. Your thoughts are focused on the dishonesty of the other guy and the callousness of the world. That is what will expand in your life, because that is what you are thinking about. Consequently, you will find yourself getting more and more fearful about being cheated, insuring yourself against the possibility, hiring attorneys to protect you, and loading yourself up with adversaries. You literally put yourself in an adversarial relationship with almost everyone that you meet. And sure enough, you find this sort of thing continuing to expand. (250)

The story, then, is a concrete example of someone (himself) resisting this mistrustful, adversarial kind of thinking. He is less concerned with the dramatic appeal of the story itself (which is fairly low) than with the appropriateness of the story to his theme. This theme is central to his book-in fact, to a number of his books. He tries to find many ways to express the idea that "what you think about expands," and this personal exemplum is one that allows him to express the idea in a concrete rather than abstract way.

However, such personal exempla are not very memorable, even if they do make the point effectively. Somewhat more memorable is the personal insight tale. Such stories are not necessarily more impressive as narratives, but because the author ties the experience at the base of the story to a telling personal insight, the story stays with the reader. In this case, often the story is "memorable" simply because the reader is impressed with how significant the experience or revelation was for the author. This is one instance in which the intimacy of the personal narrative works to the author's advantage. Early in the twentieth century, Irish novelist James Joyce borrowed the term "epiphany" to identify such personally revelatory experiences. In self-help books, the author who chooses to use such personal insight tales is often obligated to weave into the story (or at least conclude with) some commentary on the significance of the event relative to the "insight" gained. Otherwise, the plot may seem thin since the "action" is actually a sequence of thought rather than the more usual dramatic event.

For example, in his book Talking to Ducks, James Kitchens relates a long story recounting mostly his feelings on a specific Saturday night two years after his divorce from his wife and subsequent separation from his children. He writes in minute detail of his thoughts about his efficiency apartment where he was living, his observations of people walking below as he stood ~on his balcony, his sense that maybe he wasn't even there. He tells how, after crying uncontrollably for some time, he went to a nearby convenience store and bought some gum, just to see if the clerk would acknowledge that he existed. The clerk's "Thank you" as she took his change was, he said, "among the sweetest words I ever heard."

 Kitchens summarized the insight he drew from the experience as follows: "My life had been a morass of attempts to be someone else, someone whom other people wanted me to be. That night of pain and fear unmistakably dramatized that I did not know me, that I was not being me. And I knew that I had better do something about it" (1994, 26). His epiphany, his insight, would likely not have been apparent to his readers without his commentary, and, indeed, the bare content of the story would likely not have made any impression without the author's guidance on why the rather simple actions-crying, standing on the balcony, and purchasing gum at the convenience store-were important.

Another example of the personal insight tale is the following story from the classic self-help book The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck. Almost all of us from time to time seek to avoid-in ways that can be quite subtle-the pain of assuming responsibility for our problems. For the cure of my own subtle character disorder at the age of thirty I am indebted to Mac Badgely. At the time Mac was the director of the outpatient psychiatric clinic where I was completing my psychiatry residency training. In this clinic my fellow residents and I were assigned new patients on rotation. Perhaps because I was more dedicated to my patients and my own education than most of my fellow residents, I found myself working much longer hours than they. They ordinarily saw patients only once a week. I often saw my patients two or three times a week. As a result I would watch my fellow residents leaving the clinic at four-thirty each afternoon for their homes, while I was scheduled with appointments up to eight or nine o'clock at night, and my heart was filled with resentment. As I became more and more resentful and more and more exhausted I realized that something had to be done. So I went to Dr. Badgely and explained the situation to him. I wondered whether I might be exempted from the rotation of accepting new patients for a few weeks so that I might have time to catch up. Did he think that was feasible? Or could he think of some other solution to the problem? Mac listened to me very intently and receptively, not interrupting once. When I was finished, after a moment's silence, he said to me very sympathetically, "Well, I can see that you do have a problem." I beamed, feeling understood. "Thank you," I said. "What do you think should be done about it?" To this Mac replied, "I told you, Scott, you do have a problem." This was hardly the response I expected. "Yes," I said, slightly annoyed, "I know I have a problem. That's why I came to see you. What do you think I ought to do about it?" Mac respouded: "Scott, apparently you haven't listened to what I said. I have heard you, and I am agreeing why you. You do have a problem." "Goddammitt," I said, "I know I have a problem. I knew that when I came in here. The question is, what am I going to do about it?"

"Scott," Mac replied, "I want you to listen. Listen closely and I will say it again. I agree with you. You do have a problem. Specifically, you have a problem with time. Your time. Not my time. It's not my problem. It's your problem with your time. You, Scott Peck, have a problem with your time. That's all I'm going to say about it." I turned and strode out of Mac's office, furious. And I stayed furious. I hated Mac Badgely. For three months I hated him. I felt that he had a severe character disorder. How else could he be so callous? Here I had gone to him humbly asking for just a little bit of help, a little bit of advice, and the bastard wasn't even willing to assume enough responsibility even to try to help me, even to do his job as director of the clinic. If he wasn't supposed to help manage such problems as director of the clinic, what the hell was he supposed to do?

But after three months I somehow came to see that Mac was right, that it was I, not he, who had the character disorder. My time was my responsibility. It was up to me and me alone to decide how I wanted to use and order my time. If I wanted to invest my time more heavily than my fellow residents in my work, then that was my choice, and the consequences of that choice were my responsibility. It might be painful for me to watch my fellow residents leave their offices two or three hours before me, and it might be painful to listen to my wife's complaints that I was not devoting myself sufficiently to the family, but these pains were the consequences of a choice that I had made. If I did not want to suffer them, then I was free to choose not to work so hard and to structure my time differently. My working hard was not a burden cast upon me by hardhearted fate or a hardhearted clinic director; it was the way I had chosen to live my life and order my priorities. As it happened, I chose not to change my life style. But with my change in attitude, my resentment of my fellow residents vanished. (1978,39-41)

In didactic exempla, such as Wayne Dyer's story of the extra $188.50 charge above, the plot, such as it is, is responsive to the author's need for an illustration. The reader's participation in the creation of meaning of the story is limited by the author's fairly heavy-handed manipulation of the plot and the author's commentary. The reader is never allowed to forget that the reason for come what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles. He even explains that he has been a rock climber since his early teens. He concludes as follows.

After an hour had passed, I had finally faced up to defeat, made an attempt to swallow my pride, and determined that there was nothing for it but to shoulder my pack and start back down the path. As I reached for my pack, I noticed the silhouette of a small but strangely shaped figure shuffling into view along the same cliff path that had broi1ght me to the bridge. I saw her but she did not see me. An old bent woman, carrying an enormously wide-mouthed dung basket on her back, she saw nothing but the ground she was so intent on searching. In these bare high places, denuded of trees and fuel, yak dung dries quickly in the parched air and is harvested as a valuable fuel.

She shuffled, head bent, toward me, and seeing at last the two immense booted feet of a westerner, looked up in surprise. Her face wrinkled with humor as she registered her surprise, and in the greeting customary throughout Nepal, she bowed her head toward me with raised hands, saying, "Namaste." The last syllable held like a song. "I greet the God in you."

I inclined my head and clasped my hands to reply, but before I could look up, she went straight across that shivering chaos of wood and broken steel in one movement. I saw her turn for a moment, smile almost mischievously, and then to my astonishment, she disappeared from the sunlight into the dripping darkness of the opposing cliff. Incredulous, but without for one moment letting myself stop and think, I picked up my pack and went straight after her, crossing the broken bridge in seven or eight quick but frightening strides. (47-51)

Because the story includes the almost symbolic image or motif of the broken bridge as well as the contrast between an old but wise woman and a young but frightened man, we can imagine any number of applications for the implied lesson. Whyte himself expands on the idea of seeming impasses in the workplace and how courage and confidence (and perhaps a good example) are needed if individuals are to work through problems. The story itself is well told and memorable. The reader's invitation to identify with the storyteller and the storyteller's thoughts and actions is clear, and the author is free to make fun of his own fearful feelings while at the same time celebrating the dramatic and inspiring end to the story.

The personal insight tale and the personal parable are similar in function; their differences lie primarily in what we might call the quality of dramatic narrative and the sense of traditional motif. Again, since the stories are personal narratives rather than traditional tales, their content in both cases is based on actual experience of the narrator and should not, therefore, exhibit the hallmarks of traditional narrative-specifically, a recognizable, traditional plot and culturally stereotyped characters. However, in the case of the personal parable, the close approximation to the content or motifs of traditional tales and to the archetypical behavior or actions of traditional dramatis personae make the story seem more traditional and in fact more satisfying, "better," or worthy of repetition. The personal parable can stand on its own simply as a good story, even though it has that quality of instruction that makes it particularly effective in a didactic context.

Another kind of personal experience story is a belief that is demonstrated through the events recounted in the story. In the past, folklorists and anthropologists often collected such stories purely for the sake of abstracting and recording the beliefs involved. But as stories, such narratives have the advantage of being regarded as highly dramatic and significant, and thus they can be useful to self-help book writers not so much as evidence for a belief as a memorable rhetorical device for underscoring a piece of advice or a more general attitude or perspective.

Many personal experience stories that recount coincidences would be of this sort. Often the stories are themselves so striking that the point the author is trying to make gets lost, even though the story has great impact. The underlying belief, in other words, stands out as the primary message, whether the author particularly intends to promote that belief or not. For example, consider the following story related by Wayne Dyer. He offers the story for the first time in his book You'll See It When You Believe It, but he refers to it again in later books (Real Magic, Your Sacred Self, and Manifest Your Destiny), always with the clear intention that the reader associate the story with, in this case, the theme of forgiveness. It is Dyer's own story-in fact, his own special kind of insight tale-and there is little reason to doubt that in his mind the story and the theme of forgiveness are inextricably linked. However, I would argue that without his commentary, his readers would not necessarily connect the two. Instead, they would very likely simply take away from the story some reinforcement of a belief in the mystical workings of synchronicity, or perhaps even in messages or actions from beyond the grave. We mentioned Wayne Dyer's story, but let us offer a few excerpts that tell the rest of the story.

I was born in 1940, the youngest of three boys, all under the age of four. My father, whom I have never seen, abandoned this family when I was two. From all accounts, he was a troubled man who avoided honest work, drank excessively, physically abused my mother, and had run-ins with the law and spent some time in prison.

Dyer explains how resentful he became about this abandonment and how he hoped to some day find and confront this man, his father.
In 1970 I received a call from a cousin I had never met, who had heard a rumor that my father had died in New Orleans. But I was in no position to investigate it .... Then .came the turning point in my life. In 1974 a colleague of mine at the university invited me to take an assignment in the South .... When I decided to go I telephoned the infirmary in New Orleans where my cousin had reported my father to have been, and I learned that Melvin Lyle Dyer had died there ten years earlier of cirrhosis of the liver and other complications, and that his body had been shipped to Biloxi, Mississippi.

He then resolves to seek out his father's burial place, and he reflects upon whether or not his father had even given any thought to him and his brothers.

I rented a brand-new car in Columbus to make the drive to Biloxi. I mean brand-new! The odometer read 00000.8 miles. As I settled in behind the wheel I reached for the lap belt and discovered that llie right-hand belt was missing. I got out of the car, took out the entire bench seat, and there was the belt, attached to the floorboard of the car with masking tape, the buckle encased in plastic wrapping, and a rubber band around the plastic wrapping. When I ripped off the tape and the plastic, I found a business card tucked inside the buckle. It read: "Candlelight Inn ... Biloxi, Mississippi," and had a series of arrows leading to the inn. I thought it was odd, since the car had not been used before I rented it, but I stuck the card in my shirt pocket.

I arrived at the outskirts of Biloxi at 4:50 P.M. on Friday and pulled into the first gas station I saw to call the cemeteries in Biloxi. There were three listed, and after a busy signal at the first and no answer at the second, I dialed the third and least impressive listing. In response to my inquiry, an elderly-sounding male voice said he would check to see if my father was buried there. He was gone for a full ten minutes, and just as I was about to give up and wait for Monday morning to do more research, he came back with the words to end a lifetime journey. "Yes," he said, "your father is buried here," and he gave me the date of his interment.

My heart pounded with the emotion of this powerful moment. I asked him if it would be all right if I visited the grave right away.

"Certainly, if you will just put the chain up across the driveway when you leave, you are welcome to come now," he said. Before I could ask for directions, he continued, "Your father is buried adjacent to the grounds of the Candlelight Inn. Just ask someone at the station how to get there."
Shivering, I reached into my shirt pocket and looked at the business card and the arrows on it. I was three blocks from the cemetery.

When I finally stood looking at the marker on the grass, MELVIN LYLE DYER, I was transfixed. During the next two and a half hours I conversed with my father for the very first time. I cried out loud, oblivious to my surroundings.

And I talked out loud, demanding answers from a grave. As the hours passed, I began to feel a deep sense of relief, and I became very quiet. The calmness was overwhelming. I was almost certain that my father was right there with me. I was no longer talking to a gravestone, but was somehow in the presence of something which I could not, and still cannot, explain. (1989,3-6)

The story is well told, but nevertheless, it is apparent that the story itself is memorable, and while we do not believe that Dyer succeeds in tying the theme of forgiveness to the story, and is  not so permanent as is the memorable quality of the story itself. People will remember the story far longer than they will the reason it was told (or in this case, written). Like Whyte's personal parable, the story itself seems to have the strength of narrative drama inherent in its structure. The author's commentary is icing on a very solid and delicious cake.

Finally, as we might expect, some authors more or less give in to the power of certain stories and include them with little real hope that the theme or lesson to which they are tied will be remembered much beyond the page. Rather, they seem simply to delight in the opportunity to tell a good story. Such stories clearly could stand on their own as an entertaining anecdote or joke. Though an anecdote is technically about someone else and a joke is fictional, I refer to this last kind of personal narrative as a humorous personal anecdote. Typically, the story has that quality of counterpoint between two worlds of discourse and expectation that characterizes the joke. And, because it is a personal narrative, some of the humor comes as well from the reader's knowing that the author is making fun of himself or herself and actually offering some of that friendly psychological exposure that creates intimacy.

One very short example comes from the book What Love Asks of Us by husband and wife Nathaniel and Devers Branden. The authors introduce the notion of avoiding too much seriousness and its inhibiting effects, especially in sexual relations. Devers Branden then relates the following story: By way of illustrating what we mean by lightness of spirit, I willjust mention an occasion when Nathaniel believed we had finished making love while I entertained the notion that perhaps we hadn't. Borrowing one of the tools I sometimes use in therapy, a Snoopy hand-puppet (I will not attempt to explain), I improvised a new use for it in bed that neither of us had contemplated before. (1987, 138)  
 

From Healing Narrative to Worldview

Narratives of experience as seen above, are models of past events as well as models for future experience. And as we have  seen sofar, selfhelp books are  prone to presenting claims on the basis of the writer's authority alone, not even adding the weak support of anecdotal evidence.

Frequently used, narratives in the third person, are typically short segments of text in which persons of the writer's acquaintance, or clients he has met in his practice, act to put a point across. But where third person narratives abound in the selfhelp literature by such authors as Louise Hay, Shakti Gawain, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and the others seen above, they also make frequent appearances in those selfhelp books  that propound alternative therapies.

So for example,  the rhetorical legitimacy is given to the “Bach remedy” itself, rather than to the unorthodox theory that underlies Edward Bach's specific form of complementary medicine.

A young woman participating in a meditation camp cut three quarters of the way through the tip of her finger when preparing vegetables. The cut bled profusely and no doctor was immediately available. She was given a few drops of  Rescue Remedy in water every few minutes as a first-aid measure, and a pressure bandage was put on to stop the bleeding. When the bleeding had stopped, Rescue Remedy Cream was cautiously applied to the wound surfaces, and finger and fingertip were held together with dressing . By the fifth day, the wound had healed completely.1

The second narrative, taken from the same text on Bach flower remedies, goes further in that it establishes an important distinction. The alternative therapy is not only efficacious, but actually works better than conventional medicine.

A little girl of 16 months pulled a tablecloth off the table. Freshly made tea caused severe bums on her head and all down her right side, and she had to be admitted to hospital. Her mother had immediately given her Rescue Remedy, also taking it herself . The doctors felt they could not offer much hope when they saw the extent of the bums. That day and throughout the following day the mother treated the bums with Rescue Remedy Cream. The doctors let her do it, for apart from pain relief there was nothing they could do at that point. The child was discharged from the hospital on the fifth day-"a miracle cure". 2

Healing methods in use in the selfhelp milieu differ greatly in terms of the actual practices involved. Nevertheless, there are underlying assumptions uniting many of them. The following examples show how third-person narratives can be used to underpin such assumptions. The first, consisting of several sections taken from a rather long case history, illustrates the wounded-healer legend element: the common belief that healing abilities come to those who are able to transcend great personal suffering.

Marnie, forty-four, is a healer, a genuinely anointed healer, who began her work following a seven-year-long "dark night of the soul" in which she had to heal herself When Marnie was thirty, she was a social worker in Scotland, lived an active life, had a number of friends, and enjoyed her work immensely. Then she was diagnosed with an "undiagnosable" condition. With each month, Mamie developed increasing pain, sometimes in her back, sometimes as intensive migraines, sometimes in her legs.. Melanie spiraled into depression. One night while she was weeping, Marnie said she reached "surrender". "I realized that I might never feel better, and if that's the case, what would I then say to God? I surrendered completely. I said, 'whatever you choose for me, so be it. Just give me strength'''. Mamie's pain instantly eased, and he!' hands filled with  heat-not ordinary body heat, but "spiritual heat".. Marnie is now a greatly loved and highly respected healer.3

The second example, in which Depak Chopra relates an anecdote from his family history, illustrates an equally common presupposition, namely that belief in illness engenders illness.4

For years I heard about the terrible allergies my mother suffered in [Jammu]. Her tormentor was the pollen of a native flower that covered the ground when it blossomed every spring. It caused her to have severe asthma attacks; her body swelled, and on her skin appeared large welts and blisters . One spring the rains had made the roads impassable, and my father decided that they should fly back home early. They boarded the plane, and after an hour it touched down. [My father] put his hands reassuringly on my mother's arm, but he could already see the red spots on her skin and the effort it took for her just to breathe. My mother's allergy was so severe that the steward ran up and asked what was wrong. "There's nothing you can do", my father said, "It's the pollen in Jammu". 'Jammu?". The steward looked puzzled. "We haven't landed there yet".5

Both the "wounded healer" legend element and the "belief engenders illness" element are metaphysical beliefs that elude any demonstration in the stricter sense of the word.6 Narratives such as these can act persuasively by giving a rhetorical confirmation of such basic assumptions.

One instance of healing can also become a singular event that instantiates an entire anthropology and cosmology. Sitting before me in desolation and despair is a rather colorless woman, with an uncaring and uncared for look about her. The signals she is sending out are very weak, and yet, as I regard her, the personal or "true" aura, although paled almost to the point of insignificance, lights -up in my consciousness. I detach. In the flashback of time, I see the glowing, beautiful soul (or aura) dearly revealed and shining through. My hand reaches for the Rescue remedy I lift the bottle, and in the other hand I hold my torch, the light I use to release the energies within the colors.7

The generalities of such a narrative are, of course, perfectly understandable even for a reader with no knowledge of the technique involved, Aura-Soma therapy. References to past lives, embedded in the text without being spelled out, make sense for readers with a general appreciation of New Age doctrines. So does the term "energies". The concept of a "true aura", the equation between soul and aura, and the cryptic references to "Rescue" belong to the specifics of this therapy; one needs to have read earlier sections of this text for a full understanding of the passage quoted.8

Healing narratives such as those exemplified above constitute phases in a kind of progressive rhetoric: from the belief that healing is efficacious, to accepting that it is more efficacious than any competing systems, to finally being open to the idea that healing has these properties because human beings and the cosmos are constituted in a specific way. However, healing narratives speak not only of healing as a method, but also of those being healed: who they are, what processes of illness and recovery they pass through. Healing narratives subtly reinforce specific notions of personhood, of the character and development of illness, and provide a structuring script through which relevant parts of the reader's life history can be interpreted. More or less diffuse symptoms can be given a label. Changes in the experiences of the reader are subsumed under the ready-made schemata of the healing narrative. A positive outcome can be anticipated, since collections of healing narratives are prime examples of selective reporting and almost by definition exclude failed cases.

Many texts present what would emically be considered somatic, psychological and existential or social problems together, without any distinction, in a way that has earned these methods the epithet holistic. Thus in a central text on crystal healing, the mineral Kunzite is said to be useful in meditation, to make people more loving, to balance negative emotional states and help the circulatory system.9 Aromatherapist Julia Lawless recommends jasmine essence for migraine as well as lack of confidence.10 Judy Hall claims that past life regressions can help those afflicted with epilepsy, sexual problems and phobias.11 Diane Stein recommends Reiki healing for relieving pain, speeding the healing process, stopping bleeding, relaxing the recipient and balancing chakra and aura energies.12 At the far end of this spectrum, another Reiki healer, Tanmaya Honervogt, includes narratives of people who have been helped with problems ranging from physical illness such as allergies and inflammatory pains, to psychological problems such as depression, to a medley of needs such as healing pets and reviving potted plants, to fulfilling diffuse, culturally constructed desires such as "finding one's inner self", "enhancing one's intuition" and even "balancing one's organs".13 Narratives of healing similarly juxtapose or even conflate the tales of people cured from physical symptoms with stories of clients whose emotional troubles were alleviated. Intuitive healer Caroline Myss presents case studies of clients whose physical and emotional states are closely interconnected: their chronic pain goes with their compulsive behavior, back injuries have to do with anguish over failed business ventures, cancer is linked with fear of loneliness.14 Part of the healing narrative is the story of the treatment itself.

The narrative may briefly describe the intervention of the selfhelp made healer, and will naturally be couched in the terminological framework of the specific method employed: what crystals were placed on the patient's body, what aromatic oils were applied, how did the energies feel during the healing session? They will cue the reader with only a modicum of knowledge of the method to an understanding of what will happen during treatment. A narrative that affirms that "Usui Reiki energies" feel alternately hot and cold, whereas "Tera Mai Reiki energies" feel like effervescent bubbles or small electrical impulses, will lead those learning these techniques from selfhelp book,  to interpret a variety of vague proprioceptions in the appropriate way.

For most recepients, it is reasonable to assume that the point of the treatment is not just to get diagnosed or to experience the healing itself, but to get better. The healing narrative has typical ways of coming to grips with the effects of healing on the patient. Thus, ever since the inception of post-Enlightenment alternative medicine, especially of mesmerism, it has been a commonplace within numerous forms of ritual healing that a crisis of some sort is to be expected. Before the patient recovers, there will be a period during which the symptoms will be exacerbated. This belief can be found in methods as diverse as mesmerism, 18 homeopathy, crystal healing19 and Reiki.20  
 

Divination Narratives

There are thematic constraints that tend to differentiate divination narratives from healing narratives. Whereas healing narratives are thus  devoid of  details  extraneous to the illness and nearly impossible to corroborate, many divination narratives (rituals), contain a  fuller representation of the person being discussed.

Since a divinatory technique such as astrology claims to uncover a large number of salient facts about a person's life, an astrology narrative will typically encompass a much wider spectrum of the native's life. Astrology related selfhelpbooks curently are written from a  psychologizing perspective, some of it embedded in third-person narratives.

The chart interpretation, is intended to reflect every aspect of life. Since the twelfth house and the placement of Neptune are said to disclose the anatomy of things hidden, even prenatal experiences are supposedly revealed. Chart elements continue to indicate our fundamental drives through early childhood, adolescence, adult life and the aging process.

A longish third person narrative, taken from a chart reading covering fourteen full pages, will hopefully give an idea.

The energies in a house actually manifest in the unfoldment of the lifeplan [ ... ] Those with Leo on the Ascendant create a world in which the need to develop their power, authority and creative expression (Leo) is the means of defining their individual selfhood (1st [house]). Because the Ascendant ruler-the Sun-is placed in the 5th, self-discovery is also linked to the 5th house: Kate told me that raising a child on her own (5th house-children) has contributed more than anything else to her sense of power and capability. It is also through the spare-time activities (5th) of studying psychology and healing that Kate's real inner self has been.touched . In Kate's case, the Sun (the chart ruler) is aspected by all three outer 0anets, suggesting the battles, challenges and breakthroughs she has faced in finding her own identity and confidence . With Pluto in the hQpse of the self, the journey to find who she really is must include a descent into the netherworld. Kate commented: "Finding myself has been a major task. Projecting myself out to the world looks like taking the rest of my life!" (See  Sasportas The Twelve Houses, pp. 354 f. The houses are twelve sectors in a chart said to represent various areas in life such as work, family or material possessions. A typical feature of astrology is the polysemy of its symbols: as the quote indicates, the fifth house can represent many things, inter alia creativity, children, artistic endeavors and expressivity.)

What does it mean to say that every phase of life is revealed in the chart? At times, the vicissitudes of our everyday lives appear to the astrologer to be mere ephemera, manifestations of who we "really" are. The chart seems to disclose an authentic self, in a sense close to the  Romantic notion of an "inner nature". For psychologizing astrologers such as Liz Greene, Howard Sasportas and many others, the concept of an inner nature is especially related to the concept of self (sometimes capitalized as Self to note its status as archetype) and an Esoteric belief system largely based on C.G.Jung.

Narrativism is particularly strong in astrologers' and tarot readers' adoption of Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The wholesale adoption of a Jungian framework gains its plausibility partly from Jung's own dabbling with divination, but also, and more forcefully, from Jung's insistence on the deep continuity between the symbolic systems (myths, religions, art, philosophy) of past traditions and the psychological development of the present-day individual. The astrological narrative purveys a sense of this continuity and furnishes a narrative form within which one's life history  can be understood. The two elements of the utopian time-line, traditionality (myth, symbolism, alchemy) and telos (individuation, "discovering" one's true core in the mythic plot), can be joined together in narrating elements of the life story of single individuals. Thus, Jungian astrolog~r Liz Greene -aiscusses at length the horoscope of a folk singer who, after a deep depression, committed suicide. Her analysis weaves together strands as seemingly diverse as the Greek myth of Hades and Hekate, the transits of Saturn over planets in the 12th house (commonly interpreted by astrologers as the eruption of family conflicts that the native is unable to grasp), developments during the person's adolescence and Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann's speculations on ancient matriarchies. (See Greene & Sasportas Dynamics if the Unconscious, pp. 148 ff.) The tragic death of a young man is, in a sense, rendered explicable by being enmeshed in events of cosmic and world-historical significance.

The fifth and last element of the deep self, edification, unites all of the above. For Pietikainen, edification is the construction of a set of supporting and directing ideas and practices. Specifically, edification alludes to the art of diagnosing and healing the "wounded" or otherwise inauthentic or false self. Divination narratives only end when the chart reading allows the client to come to grips with his or her situation. The authentic self is gradually uncovered from the dross of conditioning; the subjective drives of the unconscious are faced, often in order to retract projections from others; the narrative of one's life course is understood. Astrology would not have its therapeutic aspects without a strong edifYing impulse. Thus, in her book Character and Fate, astrologer Katharine Merlin relates the life history of "Kim", a thirty-four year old artist. The narrative not only purports to describe who she is, but also what her main challenges are in becoming whole and fulfilled.

Since wherever Saturn is found in a chart pinpoints how and in what way a person most needs to grow, it's usually also what they resist and fear: the most undeveloped aspect of their personality. Kim's fear, with Saturn in the second [house] square Mercury in the fifth is like an judgmental, harsh inner voice . Coping with this voice and eventually understanding that it's her own unintegrated and potentially useful conscience, not some cruel external force, can free Kim from her deepest and most paralysing conflict. (K.Merlin Character and Fate, 1990, p. 199.)

Other divination narratives although less known as such, are books like “The Corse In Miracles”  and all other so called chanelled information.
 
 

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Bibliography

1 Scheffer Bach Flower Therapy, p. 206. Rescue Remedy essentially consists of water infused with the "energies" of Star of Bethlehem, Rock Rose, Impatiens, Cherry Plum and Clematis. What the down-to-earth narrative does not indicate is the highly unorthodox belief system behind the reported cures. Sudden noises, accidents, negative feelings of all kinds are said to cause energetic traumas, in which subtle (spiritual) elements have withdrawn from the physical body.

2 M.Scheffer Bach Flower Therapy,1990 p. 206.

3 C. Myss Anatomy qf the Spirit,1997,pp. 226 f.

4 The roots of this belief go back at least as far as to the students of F.A.Mesmer in central Europe, and in N. America the  nineteenth century healer Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.

5 D.Chopra Quantum Healing,1989, pp. 117 f.

6 Psychosomatic medicine would accept the more modest statement that "some beliefs may contribute to causing illness", but selfhelp authors are apt to draw much more far-reaching conclusions.

7 V.Wall Miracle of Colour Healing,1993, p. 114 f.

8 Dalichow & Booth Aura-Soma, pp. 34 ff.

9 K.Rafaell Crystal Enlightenment, 1985,pp. 114 ff.

10 J. Lawless Aromatherapy, 1995,pp. 163 ff.

11 J.Hall Past Lift Therapy,1996, pp. 15 fr.

12 D.Stein Essential Reiki, 1995,p. 21.

13 T.Honervogt,The Power of Reiki,1998. Reiki is constructed around numerous such narratives.

14 C.Myss Anatomy if the Spirit, 1997,pp.158,200, 245 ff

18 Frank Pattie ,Mesmer and animal magnetism, 1994: 57 ff.

19 B.Bravo Crystal Healing Secrets, 1988,p. 13.

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