Why Our Health Matters
Andrew Weil, M.D.
$29.95, six CDs, 360 minutes, Penguin Audio, www.penguin.com

On the news, a debate about how to heal the American health care system rages, but Healthy Aging author and alternative medicine icon Dr. Andrew Weil has been advocating a radical paradigm shift for years. The system, as he sees it, is not just dysfunctional and expensive, it is founded on all the wrong principles. In Why Our Health Matters, he explains that the current U.S. health care system is designed primarily to use technology to treat disease, rather than using preventive techniques such as diet, exercise, breathing, and stress management. Western doctors are trained to rely on technical procedures and to alleviate symptoms with pharmaceuticals rather than getting to the root cause of what ails the patient. This, he says, is the enormous underlying problem that causes skyrocketing costs, ineffectiveness, and patient dissatisfaction, and it’s the one we must fix in order to make American health care the best it can be. His formula for transformation includes moving the medical community to the practice of more holistic, preventive approaches and what he calls integrative medicine. Those familiar with Weil’s long career will not find many surprises, as he has long advocated such a shift, but his lucid, clear approach to the subject crystallizes one path to healing what many consider a failing and unsustainable system.

Soul Transitions: A Medium’s Journey to the Spirit World
Sunny Dawn Johnston
$20, one CD, 69 minutes, Sunny Dawn Johnston, www.sunnydawnjohnston.com

Sunny Dawn Johnston, a psychic medium and spiritual teacher, offers her insights on the process each soul experiences as it leaves the earthly plane and travels to the other side. She begins by describing what one might experience in the moment of death, depending on whether the death was due to illness, accident, violence, or suicide. She then describes the process of life review and transition into a higher frequency of being once the soul “returns home.” Finally, she offers instruction and a meditation for connecting with your loved ones who have passed, and the CD finishes with music from Kris Voelker (www.krisvoelker.com). This is a well-rounded and well-explained encapsulation of Johnston’s view of the afterlife, and it will appeal both to those customers seeking solace after loss and those searching for answers to one of life’s greatest mysteries.

Chronicles of Magick: Prosperity Magick
Cassandra Eason
$15.95, one CD, 50 minutes, Paradise Music, www.paradisemusic.us.com

With so many people suffering money woes in the poor economy, Cassandra Eason’s Prosperity Magick CD is bound to fly off the shelves. Part of Paradise Music’s friendly, entry-level Chronicles of Magick instruction series, this release is perfect for the new year, offering instant money spells, methods for restoring prosperity after a financial loss such as losing one’s job, and much more. Eason’s gentle, easy instruction sets a helpful and unintimidating tone that’s perfect for beginners and laypeople. Make this part of a prosperity display with candles, I-Ching coins, and other related items, and it may just bring a little financial boost to your store.

Something Unknown Is Doing We Don’t Know What
Renée Scheltema
$24.95, one DVD, 105 minutes, Telekan, www.somethingunknown.com

Despite broad popular acceptance of psychic phenomena in recent years (a 2005 Gallup poll showed 73% of Americans believe in some form of the paranormal), the scientific community largely continues to ignore it as a field of study … with a few notable exceptions. Enter Dutch filmmaker Renée Scheltema, who was inspired by her daughter’s precognitive dream to seek out the foremost researchers in the fields of telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, healing, and remote viewing to try to better understand the tangible evidence for these phenomena. Scheltema—whom we hear from through narration but see only glimpses of since she’s behind the camera—interviews such preeminent researchers as Dr. Dean Radin, senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Dr. Gary Schwartz with the VERITAS program at the University of Arizona. What she finds is substantial scientific evidence for the existence of psychic capabilities among humans. Among the fascinating topics covered are a secret CIA program employing remote viewers to spy on Soviet sites during the Cold War, a worldwide random-number generator project in which major events such as the death of Princess Diana and Sept. 11th create spikes of anomalous data for no other reason than many people are focused on the same thing at the same time, and a Brazilian healer known as John of God who performs what some see as miraculous healings of incurable or untreatable conditions. This well-made, fascinating film should connect strongly with viewers curious about the intersection of science and the paranormal.

Infinity: The Ultimate Trip
Jay Weidner
$24.95, one DVD, 90 minutes, Sacred Mysteries Productions, www.sacredmysteries.com

The beauty of this film lies not so much in its imagery—though the swirling fractals and beaming faces from around the globe are visually gorgeous—but in its message: Earth is a school, and birth and death are merely doorways into and out of that school; beyond that, existence is an incredibly elegant system in which we are all a part of God. This message is delivered eloquently and effectively by experts on life and death and the nature of existence, including Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations With God), Dannion Brinkley (Saved by the Light), and Dr. Brian Weiss (Many Lives, Many Masters). A highlight of the movie is the engaging interview with Renate Dollinger, an artist and German holocaust survivor who delightfully recounts her extraordinary experiences as a young woman with a guardian angel that informed her of her family’s deaths and guided her to her current life in California. Their insights and personal experiences give the viewer an incandescent vision of life as an ever-evolving soul’s journey, explaining the process of death, the role of reincarnation, and our connection to God and the universe, including divine beings such as angels and ascended masters. The purpose of the film is clearly to convey peace and joy about the sometimes-scary subject of death, to move beyond the fear to greater understanding of what life really is. And on that score, it is wildly successful.

Living Luminaries on the Serious Business of Happiness
Sean Mulvihill and Larry Kurnarsky
$24.95, one DVD, 90 minutes, Grace Point Films/Beyond Distribution, www.beyondword.com

Loosely structured inside a fictional narrative about a twenty-something actor, Sean Mulvihill, struggling to find true happiness and inner peace is a group of real interviews with some of today’s foremost spiritual authors and leaders. The film begins as Mulvihill, the wisdom seeker and interviewer, receives profound advice from Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements: Don’t believe. Just listen. The truth will sink in while all the rest floats away. This plays out noticeably throughout the movie as Mulvihill interviews everyone from Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist leaders such as Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of Loyola University, Rev. Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, and the Venerable Tibetan Lama Chodak Gyatso Nubpa to prominent New Age authors Michael Bernard Beckwith, Marianne Williamson, and Eckhart Tolle. The sheer breadth of personalities (including a surfing rabbi and a voodoo princess), not to mention the depth of powerful insights about how to find one’s own inner peace in the face of life’s challenges, make Living Luminaries a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom. Nearly any viewer will find something to agree and argue with, and but in the end, if the viewer follows Ruiz’s advice to “just listen,” they will also surely find a number of enlightening and resonant moments in this DVD, no matter where they are on their spiritual journey. It also makes a great introduction for the authors on the film, so consider displaying or cross-referencing with the books of Tolle, Beckwith, Ruiz, and others.

Daily Energy: Vinyasa Flow Yoga
Shiva Rea
$19.99, one DVD, 168 minutes, Acacia, www.acacialifestyle.com

For yoga practitioners with busy lives and tight schedules, this DVD could be a lifesaver. Its seven 20-minute Vinyasa flow yoga routines are beautifully demonstrated and narrated by renowned instructor Shiva Rea, who designed the program with maximum flexibility (pardon the pun) in mind. Rea’s approach is to provide the user with shorter flow yoga segments in a “matrix” or mix-and-match programmable format so that several can be combined in any order for a longer custom session or each can be used one at a time according to the needs of the day. The DVD also has the option of pre-packaged sessions themed according to elements (Earth, Water, Fire, etc.), which denote a more relaxed or energetic level to the routines. The viewer can also choose whether to include narration or music, and the routines themselves are filled with a wide variety of movements. While no one move is so advanced as to be intimidating, this DVD is probably best suited to more experienced practitioners due to the relatively quick pace of the flow movements—but for those who love yoga and want to get their daily dose from one of the country’s premier instructors, it’s an excellent recommendation.

Janine DePaulo is associate editor of New Age Retailer.