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Summary: Multiple Mirrors to See Your Soul and Its Commitments!
Review: Sacred Contracts engages you in an extensive, self-exploring expedition to unearth the core ingredients of your unique, spiritual identity. Because there are so many assignments to do in the book and it is so detailed, I suggest you get the hardcover version rather than one of the audio versions. Of all the many books I have read about finding and following the dictates of your own true self, Sacred Contracts is by far the most unusual and detailed. The author calls upon major religious traditions, Eastern ideas about energy centers in the body, Jungian psychological archetypes, and astrology among other sources as context for seeing yourself as unique. Although few of these references are ones that I relate to very often, I was impressed by the way that they centered my focus by helping me see what life roles are not important in my life, as the contrast for seeing what is important. In my past experience with increasing self-understanding, the focus was on what was important. Cutting away the unimportant makes those important areas stand out much more clearly. This is a book that can help you learn for the rest of your life. Unlike many books that are aimed at helping you find "the answer" and then getting you off working with "the answer," Sacred Contracts is designed to help with new challenges and issues in the future . . . as well as the ones you have today. I found myself particularly enriched by reviewing the very long list of potential archetypes that are developed in the book. These are explained by stories of individuals, references to popular books and movies, and examples of how one archetype differs from other, similar ones. As a result, the archetypes and my own reactions to them came into much clearer focus in my mind. When I had read about these in Joseph Campbell's work, I often found them to be distant. Here, they are immediate. Sacred Contracts focuses on "what is our mission in life?" This includes both "where am I going?" and "who will go with me?" The answer is unique for each person to each of these questions. A sacred contract is "your overall relationship to your personal . . . and spiritual power." The contract is "a plan to help you develop your divine potential." This is to fulfill "an agreement your soul makes before you are born." As I read these concepts, I found them to be most closely identified in my mind with the beliefs of Buddhism as they relate to the reincarnated soul. The author takes care to show that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam also contain these points of view. The book contains a lot of material to help you absorb the context of these perspectives. In that sense, I felt a little like I was reading a condensed version of The Golden Bough. After you understand the archetypes and their manifestations, you are directed how to engage in an extensive mental dialogue with and write about the positive and negative forms of each important archetype for you. These will include the four universal ones (child, victim, compromised person, and saboteur) as well as your selection from dozens of others for the ones that seem most important to you (such as addict, angel, bully, gambler, Midas, poet, and thief). For example, you will ask, "Why did I choose this archetype?" "In what way do I feel the archetype serves my Contracts with other people?" The focus of all this remains on keeping "your attention on reaching your highest potential." To do this, you must "surrender to self." Most people will find the list of what to think about and the exercises to do to be a bit intimidating. I certainly did. The work is based on a successful seminar that the author has been developing over many years. So it is intended to take quite a bit of time to do and implement. I suggest that you find blocks of time of at least two hours in length to work on these assignments when you will not be disturbed. If you are single, you might go someplace where you can be alone but see the splendor of nature. If you live with your family, early morning or late at night would probably be the best time . . . while others are at rest. Naturally, if you like what you read here, you could also consider doing a seminar with the author. I'm assuming that that is much more expensive than working with this book on your own. Some people might find it helpful to find someone to do this with, so that you share your results with one another. This could help provide the discipline to keep working on discovering your sacred contracts. May you fulfill your highest purpose in ways that bring great joy and benefit to you and all whom you meet! God bless you.
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Summary: Immense achievement ... archetypes and divinity
Review: Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding this book the most fun in the author's library of excellence. Sacred Contracts is an immense accomplishment, well written, with admirable scholarship and clarity. Myss addresses the roots of archetypal thinking, most especially in Plato and Carl Jung. She adds her own, unprecedented, contribution and details her history, as a medical intuitive and psychic, of working with the archetypes. She offers solid definitions, a fascinating list in the appendix, of archetypes, and provides workshop techniques for learning consciously with the guidance of archetypes. I don't want to define archetype because she does it so well. Suffice me to say that these are, as in Jung's view, energy bundles of symbolic qualities that live in the collective unconscious and offer guidance to human beings through various life challenges. Jung defines archetypes such as the Shadow, Trickster, Child, and Mother. Myss adds a few hundred more and suggest that we all have four in common and eight electives, 12 archetypes for each lifetime, a zodiac of chosen lessons, challenges, and life adventures. Myss suggests that these archetypes, universal and personal, can be discovered as a way to consciously work with the commitments we make (our sacred contracts) before entering each lifetime. That we've made promises to ourself and God, come to life, and then forget what we intended to do is not a new idea. It is well detailed in works of Sylvia Browne and in many ancient texts. Myss explains that when doing medical intuitive readings for people she began seeing the symbols for universal and personal archetypes in the energy field of people getting readings. In this book, she shares this gift and tells us how to find out what our own Sacred Contracts are through discovering our archetypes, and, o yes, interviewing them ... by having a dialog with these energy bundles, we learn our divine intentions and can work with our challenges, setbacks, and opportunities to fulfil our divine purposes. This book is good enough, rare enough, and a stunning achievement to own it in hardback. For those who cannot, and cannot wait, there is the library ... I know this is a work of solemn importance but that doesn't keep it from being great fun ... getting acquainted with the archetypes is a little bit like a class reunion ... sounds impossible ... try it ! It's fun.
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Summary: Insightful, life-changing book, with much food for thought
Review: I loved this book, and found it to be really helpful in my spiritual growth. This book is very deep stuff. I did not give it 5 stars only because the orginization of it made it a little difficult to read or find references in it quickly. It does have a table of contents, but not an index. However, this is a minor flaw, considering the impact of this book and the importance of its subject matter. I recommend it highly if you're ready for life-changing reading material. It's a winner.
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Summary: TERRIFIC BOOK ON SELF-DISCOVERY
Review: There is an old saying that goes, "In order to know where we are going, we first need to know where we came from." This book immediately caught my interest because of my background in behavioural psychology and my belief in Buddhist Philosophies. However, one does not need training or education in either of these areas, nor do they need to be highly educated to see the value of "Sacred Contracts". If you are prepared to self-identify and open to accepting what you learn, the book has tremendous merit. The author helps readers to identify their own true spirituality. Through the pages of this book you will come to understand various archetypes and how to identify them. What the reader does need to do is commit to the time it takes to do the various exercises. That are quite time consuming and thought provoking. Without the commitment of sufficient time and enengy, one will not obtain the full benefit of the book. Once one can weed out the trivial matters of their life and discover first-hand what is truly important and significant, a better of understanding of your unique, spiritual self will emerge. This book is well written and highly recommended reading material.
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Summary: "Reinventing the wheel."
Review: Caroline Myss always draws a big crowd here in Boulder, and her sold-out appearance several nights ago was no exception. Her intellectually and spiritually powerful lecture, drawn mostly from this 433-page book, prompted me to read SACRED CONTRACTS in a single weekend. In her previous bestseller, ANATOMY OF THE SPIRIT, Myss showed us how "our biography becomes our biology" (p. 3), and in this book she integrates psychological archetypes, Eastern and Western spiritualty, and the energies of the chakras into a path of self discovery that leads to living life to our fullest potentials. In a word, SACRED CONTRACTS is about empowerment. Why are we here? What should we be doing with our lives? To discover our individual purposes, Myss encourages us to first find and then learn how to use our inner compass (p. 2). We need to find our divine path through life, Myss observes, because how we live our lives can create health or illness (p. 3). Drawing from sources like Jung and Plato, Myss teaches us how to read the archetypal patterns that influence our chakra energies (p. 6). "Archetypes are the architects of our lives" (p. 7), she writes, and our chakra energies radiate into every aspect of our lives, influencing our survival instincts, sex drives, self esteem, emotions, intellect, and spiritual aspirations (p. 165). I discovered, for instance, that I am influenced by the archetypal patterns of Hermit, Advocate, Poet, Rebel, Seeker, Student, Dreamer, and sometimes Clown, among others. Myss even provides an extensive and truly fascinating "Gallery of Archetypes" in the Appendix of her book (pp. 364-416). Dr. Myss defines our sacred contract as the lesson we agreed to learn before birth in this incarnation to fulfill our divine potential (p. 17), and illustrates her discussions with the sacred contracts of Jesus (pp. 88-93), Muhammad (pp. 93-98), and the Buddha (pp. 98-103). While it offers its reader many opportunities for self discovery, I also think SACRED CONTRACTS should also be read with a caveat emptor inasmuch as its "Archetypal Wheel" premise rests greatly upon the validity of the archetypes, eight chakras, and twelve houses of the zodiac Myss relies upon in her methodology. Or perhaps I just approached this book through a Doubting Thomas archetype. Despite that caveat, however, SACRED CONTRACTS is a good reference tool for understanding the fine print of our lives. G. Merritt
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Summary: Life Altering
Review: This is the first book I have ever read that even comes close to explaining what I believe the afterlife to be, or rather the beginning of life on earth. Except for a few minor differences this is right on. Have you ever heard things that you know the meaning of the words, but until someone enlightens you the meaning of the words is missed. This book turned on the light in my head about sooooo many things, that it is hard to believe. Enlightenment comes in slow subsets, and this book has connected many subsets for me.
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Summary: are we all schizo? uhuh!
Review: who are those inner voices come from inside of us? they are our archetypes! the child, the saboteur, the healer, the victim... oh so many to find out about. they are the voices of our fearful ego and our loving Self... find out who they are, and how to understand them... to understand them is to discover the mythology within your own soul... and to come to know who you are, why you react and act the way you do, why you make bad or good choices, what your path is like now, and how to better steer your journey towards your highest purpose. you could also learn to relate to other people better. instead of seeing ONLY how people act and reacting to them, you will actually be able to start understanding why they act as they do and maybe learn to interact with others better instead of reacting to them. if you can get through even some of the major parts of the book, your inner conversations could take on maturity and clarity. YOU will be in better control of your Life by knowing your various selves... even when i did not even finish the book from cover to cover, i started to pick up valuable insights on my own inner voices... very good perspective to learn to take on about oneself and others.
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Summary: for the seriuos reader
Review: If you are into active journal writing, this is an excellent book for you. It is not a light and easy read and you will have to work for the information the author promises. It is not gift wrapped. On the other hand, great wonderous mysteries will not be solved with this book. If you are looking for a means of self exploration, this is the book for you. It's tempting to buy into all of the labels (archetypes) but really it's all coping skills with fancy names. I think it is the type of book you will either really, really like or one that you will detest.
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Summary: Clear writing, but convoluted premise.
Review: I give Caroline 2 stars since she is a talented writer. I have seen her speak and she is much more interesting and engaging than this book would make you think. This book is just so out in left-field for me that I am not able to comprehend WHY anyone would want to know this. I am deeply into eastern thinking, spirituality, self-help, etc. etc. etc. But, this truly is a book which had no connection to me. Not spiritually. Not in any way! I can guarantee you that I made absolutely no CONTRACTS based on any of the archetypes included in this book. Sacred or otherwise! I highly recommend borrowing this from the library prior to commiting to a purchase. If this book somehow connects with you after that, then by all means, buy it. I wish I had done that. I would have never purchased this had I even glanced through the table of contents first.
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Summary: Caution: It may be a Myss-take to buy this!
Review: Caroline Myss is a whacked-out flake. "Sacred Contracts" is a pretentious, amateurish puddle of mix 'n' match Eastern religion/mysticsm and new age crap.
It's the literary bastard of dungeons and dragons and a daily horoscope. Far from being a technique to empower yourself by knowing yourself: This dark and dreary tome is at best a parlor game. At worst, it's a grim, Myss-directed recipe that teaches us how to surrender the power of our unique selves to a dozen flitting 'archetypes'! (Lord Of The Rings' "Dark Riders" come to mind, for Pete's sake!) I don't usually write reviews --least of all a review about a book I despise. I have lived my life trying always to be respectful of other people's beliefs. But the dulling effect this book may have on someone in crisis, who may be sincerely searching for answers in their life, alarms me. Unless you want to turn your search for your authentic self into a miserable life-long hobby, (and a source of life-long profit for this silly woman) you need to get serious --and GET REAL! Get some real experts. People who can EMPOWER you with real information. The clock is ticking. Don't squander another day in the misery of a lost or broken spirit. Life is short. Find the people who can make your spirit FLY. Your life, and the lives of the people who love you, depend on it.
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