Law Books

This book is good example of how not even intellectually honest conservative could survive the radical ideology of the Bush Administration. Jack Goldsmith lasted only 9 months as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) before having to resign.

Goldsmith took office in October 2003. His time in office, though brief, was spent thinking and opining about some of the most complex wartime decisions about executive branch power any administration has ever encountered. Little did he know that people he considered to be fellow conservatives were actually radicals who cared nothing about the separation of powers and did everything they could to undermine it and shape legal opinions accordingly.

That is what all the debate today about a "unitary executive" concerns. The radicals maintained that there were no constraints on a President in wartime. Goldsmith, a real conservative scholar, knew otherwise.

Not many people know of the OLC, or its function and its influence within the executive branch of government (including me until I read this book). As part of the Department of Justice it addresses legal issues facing executive branch decisions. OLC legal opinions, if they approve an executive branch decision, all but confer immunity from prosecution for actions taken by government officials.

Prior to Goldmith's arrival, John Yoo, a friend of Goldsmith's but a radical in conservative's clothing, had already issued the famous "torture (interrogation) memos" of August 2002 and March 2003 under the auspices of the OLC. The CIA called them the "golden shield" and others in government referred to them as "get out of jail free" cards.

Goldsmith's description of Yoo's legal reasoning in authoring the interrogation memos (one for CIA and one for DOD) shows Yoo, not the law, to be an ass. Yoo, an alleged war expert still teaches at Berkeley. If Berkeley grants him tenure after this book, shame on it.

Goldsmith, in an unprecedented action, had to withdraw the memos and subject government officials to legal liability because of Yoo's unbelievably inept legal reasoning. He resigned the same day he withdrew Yoo's memo for the CIA, June 15, 2004. He was no longer welcome in the Bush Administration.

The main villain of the piece is David Addington, Vice President Cheney's (who else?) chief legal counsel. If Addington is a conservative, Genghis Khan was just a peaceful nomad passing through European cities. Addington's extreme legal views on presidential war-making powers held sway in an administration that was panicked after 9/11 and saw Congress and the courts only as obstacles to an effective anti-terror program.

Goldsmith, realizing there were limits on presidential power even in wartime had no chance against Addington's bullying influence. Typical of a radical, Addington's basic mantra was that if you oppose unlimited executive power you are not just wrong, you are a traitor.

Other issues that Goldsmith had to address that are of great interest are the concept of extralegality, a president's prerogative power, indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, rendition, and the Geneva Conventions.

The irony is that, like many conservatives, Goldsmith ends up relying on the actions of a liberal Democrat as the ideal for how to handle controversial issues. He does an excellent job of explaining how FDR used political craftsmanship to enlist Congress, the courts, and the public at large to back the expansion of his wartime powers. Goldsmith indicts the Bush administration for its radically opposite stonewall policy.

Though intellectually honest on legal issues, Goldsmith displays the same antiquated notions as other conservatives in politics. His references to "lefties" at Harvard, "hippies" in Boston (what? they were ad-men) and Scooter Libby falling into a "perjury trap" display a political naif at work outside his area of expertise. He does need stick to the law.

He is also less than forthright regarding the Iraq War. He does not even mention it until almost three-quarters into the book. It is an obvious sign that he is reluctant in having to admit that White House deception in getting us into that war made all further anti-terrorist actions by the administration suspect throughout the world, though he finally does.

Goldsmith's complaint that wartime executive powers have been hamstrung by legal restraints by congressional action after Watergate rings hollow. This is especially true when he concludes that all of the legal problems could have been avoided if the Bush administration had only cooperated with the other branches of government rather than acting in secret and unilaterally in its anti-terror efforts.

If anything, that conclusion makes it seem even more necessary to legally constrain an executive run amok.

The grand irony of the (early - pre-2004) Bush administration's counterterrorism policies, Goldsmith observes, is that although the Bush administration lawyers sought "to leave the presidency stronger than they found it", in fact they "seem to have achieved the opposite". The reason is simply that the American constitutional system really does have three branches of government. Although the judiciary in principle has little constitutional role to play in matters of war or foreign policy generally, the fact that the war on terror has been conceived by the administration as a global war - in which the whole world is the battleground, in which even American citizens on American soil could be named as enemy combatants and indefinitely detained solely on the say-so of the executive - ensures that the Supreme Court cannot be left aside.

The administration's tunnel vision has thus left it blind to the fact that, by seeming to go it alone and refusing to go to Congress for such things as limits, but also authority, to hold detainees at Guantánamo, or specific rules on interrogation that confine, but also legally protect, interrogators, the administration has tied itself in marriage to a far more exigent spouse - the Court. The message of successive detainee cases from the Supreme Court - Hamdi and Hamdan, particularly - has not so far been that the constitution forbids much of what the executive proposes to do. After all, most of this pertains to non- citizens detained outside the United States; and until the Bush administration's spectacularly overreaching legal theories blew up in its face, no one thought the constitution applied to them at all. The message is, rather, that the administration should seek Congressional assent for what it wants to do. The Court has signalled provisionally that it will accept at least some extraordinary rules in the war on terror - provided, however, that the political branches have together given those departures democratic legitimacy. The Court's limits, following the just argued Boumediene case, to what the political branches might do even together are not yet firmly drawn.

But there is no going it alone in a system of divided constitutional powers. If not Congress, it will be the Court - or more exactly, as Benjamin Wittes has noted, the inconstant Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court's swing vote - that endorses policy. In pursuing unfettered executive power to act alone, the administration has made Justice Kennedy its five-star general, its very own Douglas MacArthur in the war on terror. On the infrequent occasions when the administration has been forced by the Court to go to it for authority, it has been denied practically nothing. It has not so far mattered that the Bush administration is a lame duck, or whether Congress is in Republican or Democratic hands.

The administration seems not to have understood that what lives by executive discretion dies by executive discretion. If the Bush administration took counterterrorism as seriously as it took the abstraction of executive power, it would have thought ahead to its own departure from office. If it truly believed that its approach to counterterrorism was correct, then from the first day of its second term it would have engaged with Congress to create institutions to outlive any particular Presidency. It would have thought about the example of the Cold War and how a democracy deals with a genuine threat to a whole way of life. In retrospect, the democratic institutions of the Cold War did a remarkable job of balancing safety and liberty over decades; pure executive discretion cannot possibly promise the same. The administration having undertaken none of these things, US counterterrorism policy today flails without long-term strategic guidance or institutional stability.

Yet any future institutional settlement for counterterrorism inevitably bumps up against the contradictory impulses of government officials who confronted Goldsmith on his entry into the OLC and impelled his departure not many months later. The Terror Presidency says repeatedly that government policy after 9/11 was Bush's instruction to the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft: "Don't ever let this happen again". For Goldsmith, every Presidency for the foreseeable future will be characterized by an "unremitting fear of devastating attack, an obsession with preventing the attack, and a proclivity to act aggressively and preemptively to do so". No matter what might get said in the course of an election campaign, a Democratic administration once in office, "will be even more anxious than the current President to thwart the attack". In order to act as aggressively as the spirit of the age demands, however, government officials in the CIA and elsewhere must have confidence that apparently authorized aggressive actions that turn out to be mistaken, unnecessary, excessive or cause collateral damage to innocents will not be judged after the fact by a different set of standards than those going in. The criminal laws now in place make it very difficult, however, for operational officers of government, whether in detention, interrogation, surveillance or other covert activities, to have such confidence. The criminal laws use vague terms such as "inhumane", "degrading" or "humiliating" that practically invite after-the-fact revisionism, creating legal uncertainties that become insurmountable obstacles to action. Congress and the administration, in the seemingly perverse desire to have it both ways - encourage action but have the option to prosecute it afterwards - refuse to be specific as to what is actually permitted and not. Operational officials therefore respond rationally to the disincentives to act created by legal uncertainty.

Understanding the raison d'être of the torture memos issued by OLC in 2002, prior to Goldsmith's arrival, is nearly impossible without understanding their relationship to the vagaries of these criminal laws. The role of the OLC for some fifty years has been to give authoritative advice to the executive branch on legality and constitutionality. As Goldsmith notes, of necessity its opinions are often secret and not reviewable by any court. This is not as strange as it sounds. It is a part of the executive's obligation to "faithfully execute" the laws; to do that, the executive must know what the laws are and what they mean - a function always delegated, however, to the Attorney General, constitutionally obliged to give advice on "questions of law when required by the President of the United States". In practice, however, this might easily tempt lawyers in the OLC to write tendentious briefs to justify what the executive already intends to do, under circumstances in which judicial review may not be possible.

The OLC has so far insulated its lawyers from pressure by the executive. In matters of national security law, those OLC opinions operate as immunity against criminal prosecution of officials who act in good faith even if, ultimately, wrongly. It is almost impossible for the Justice Department to prosecute an official when that same department's OLC has blessed the conduct. The torture memos therefore purported to define torture for purposes of guiding what the executive might lawfully do. From the standpoint of CIA agents and other officials, these opinions offered immunity for their actions if they acted in reasonable reliance on them. The OLC in 2002 offered opinions on the definition of torture that certainly fulfilled this function; but they did so in ways that Goldsmith could not sustain, drafted as tendentious and conclusory briefs.

Worse, they did so not within bounds of what actual administration interrogation policy might be - waterboarding, for example - but instead within the maximal legal bounds offering the most iron-clad protection possible against criminal liability for anything. Goldsmith says that he was not disturbed by the exploration of the outermost limits of the law against torture as such, but these memos had a purpose fundamentally different from simply setting out boundaries. They more or less authorized anything short of Saddam's infamous meat grinder, and then, for good measure, added that in any case the President was not bound by any of this. The memos were disastrous because they left the understanding that these hypotheticals at the outer orbits of law constituted a statement of the government's actual policy proposals. Goldsmith observes that although the charge is frequently made that the Bush administration is "lawless", it is better understood as the most over-lawyered in US history.

Goldsmith was pilloried in press articles suggesting that he had authored the torture memos. Only later did it emerge that he had in fact withdrawn them. This has caused Goldsmith to be treated in the media as a kind of hero, a whistle-blower, though Goldsmith himself feels uncomfortable with "the Manichean tone . . . one sees so often when press and intellectuals criticize the Bush administration's attempts to balance liberty and security". His discomfort is evident from the fact that he is contributing his profits from this book to charity and that he has refrained from wholesale criticism of the Bush administration. As custodian of the OLC, Goldsmith believed he had a constitutional obligation to offer opinions that were not merely briefs in support of a preordained position. Withdrawing the torture memos also meant, as he well knew, withdrawing immunity upon which mid-tier government officials and agents had relied in good faith. Goldsmith's exit from government was not on account of his being fired; indeed, the Attorney General or the President could have overruled him and did not. No one stopped Jack Goldsmith from withdrawing the torture memos; but having "reversed or rescinded more OLC opinions that any of my predecessors", he writes, many people "lost faith in me. What else might I withdraw and when?"

Many people believe that the terror threat is overrated, the problem is to "manage" rather than defeat it. Goldsmith acknowledges this emerging view, and while rejecting it does not seek to refute it. America will live the Terror Presidency, Goldsmith says, with its dense moral ambiguities unfolding deep within a democracy's many necessary bureaucracies and institutions. The moral uncertainties, lest anyone mistake his meaning, are captured with brutal precision by Goldsmith's own last words on the torture memos:

"Some people have praised my part in withdrawing and starting to fix the interrogation opinions. But it is very easy to imagine a different world in which my withdrawal of the opinions led to a cessation of interrogations that future investigations made clear could have stopped an attack that killed thousands. In this possible world my actions would have looked pusillanimous and stupid, not brave."

(This is taken from my review of this book in the Times Literary Supplement, December 24, 2007.)

I thank Mr. Goldsmith for sharing his experience in the Bush Presidency. The account was informative on the workings of government and the men involved. Well done!

In the book "The Terror Presidency" by Jack Goldsmith, the author gives the best reasoning for allowing torture that I have ever seen. He has also written opinions that give the widest latitude to the government to suspend habeas corpus and trial by jury. Mr. Goldsmith is a conservative lawyer and a college professor, according the book's jacket. (Obviously not of the "originalist" school of thought since it is clear the makers would be appalled by these opinions which are exactly the opposite of their intentions.) Mr Goldsmith's idea is to stretch the Constitution as far as possible in order to deal with the danger of terrorism.

There are other opinions that, according to Mr. Goldsmith, are necessary for the United States. For instance, he states that the US should never recognize the International Criminal Court and uses Rumsfeld's explanation that weak nations could use it to protect themselves against powerful nations. The current administration calls the use of laws as a substitute for "traditional military action," "Lawfare."

One hardly knows what to say to these logical arguments. They certainly do not agree with the notions about this country that I learned at my father's knee. He taught me that we were a nation of laws. The poor and the weak were as important as the rich and the strong. I can't imagine that the founding fathers would say use of military action is preferable to using the courts.

There has been a lot of conversation about using torture "in an emergency." The only rule a civilized nation should have is that torture is illegal period. If one of our agents gets hold of someone who is planning a terrorist attack and knows in his heart that torture would uncover the plot, that agent should be willing to go to jail for ignoring the law. His sentence would likely be short if this torture saved a lot of lives. Civil disobedience to save the nation should also mean taking the penalty for that disobedience. Think how many people have sacrificed their very lives for this country. Secret agents presumably are willing to put their lives on the line for their country.

The depressing thing is that we used to be the "good guys." In the past, if our government was doing something shameful, it tried to keep it a secret. These days we don't even try to hide it.

Everyone should read this book even if it is depressing. Mr. Goldsmith seems to have no clue that he has written a treatise on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and completely ignored morality, principle, law, and the Founding Fathers.

I found this to be an extremely valuable book on a radioactive topic--the purported legal justifications for the Bush Administration's "war on terror" and its treatment of detainees. The book takes an unique perspective--the author served for 9 months as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC") at the Department of Justice. Those of us who are "alums" of DOJ know how critical the work of OLC is, since it lays down the Department's "rulings" in its opinions as to what is legal and what is not legal. These opinions bind the entire government and so are of great significance.

It helps that this hot topic is addressed by someone who worked in the Bush administration and is of rather conservative temperment, rather than an outside critic. The book offers remarkable insight into the role of OLC in the Bush administration strategy, the interplay of law and military action, competing conceptions of presidential power, and the role of International Law (such as Geneva conventions) in placing limits on American freedom of action. We learn that administration officials were terrified of being pursued once out of office by Independent Counsel, Inspectors General, and foreign governments for their actions involving detainees. Such laws as the "War Crimes Act," the "War Powers Act," the Torture Statute, and so forth caused some officials to feel they were being "strangled by law."

The author discusses and critiques the key OLC opinions, many authored by John Yoo, which authorized the "treatment" accorded to detainees, at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. For those really interested in details, it is handy to have a copy of "The Torture Papers" edited by Greenberg and Dratel handy, since it contains almost all the key documents then available. The author could not discuss in detail the key March 14, 2003 memo which was then classified; recently, it has been released and is easily available on the internet. The author, who withdrew several of the OLC opinions by Yoo, presents the reader with several interesting questions: (a) are lawyers making terrorism policy and, if so, what are the consequences? (b) what is OLC, independent and court like, or a legal apologist?; and (c) most importantly, why did the Bush administration not seek to consult with Congress and secure authorizations rather than pursue its "go it alone" policy. After all, Congressional consultation and authorizations were good enough for Lincoln and FDR--why not this time around?

I use this book every morning with my spiritual readings. It helps start the day with a postive attitude and sense that there is huge force involved in my life.

Cool book!!

I loved it. very uplifting. I get the Notes from the Universe e mails
already and this was very good . I plan to purchase Mike's other books.
I have told my friends to buy it too.

Another great book from Mike Dooley. He is very effective in his writing and speaking. Really enjoyed this!!

This is a wonderful little book to have laying around. Full of "pick me up" anecdotes for life.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE READING THIS BOOK. I READ A LITTLE EVERY DAY AND SOMETIMES WHEN I'M NOT FEELING SO HAPPY I JUST PICK THE BOOK UP TO A RANDOM PAGE AND IT ALWAYS SEEMS TO APPLY TO MY CURRENT SITUATION OF HOW I'M FEELING AND ALWAYS CHEERS ME UP. IT'S A GREAT READ!!!!

It came in descent condition it was used like the owner said but not completely beat up. Descent condition.

This year, I wanted to make certain that I wasn't overlooking any tax deductions. This book has lots of good advice.

If you buy the 2007 tax guide by this same publisher, this book is a waste of time!

This book is a great help and full of insight, a must for anyone doing their own taxes.

The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada (California Academy of Sciences) (California Academy of Sciences) (California Academy of Sciences)
This is an excellent field guide packed with accurate, hand drawn colored illustrations of everything you can imagine, from mushrooms to insects to reptiles.

This is an incredible book on the Sierra Nevada, written and illustrated entirely by Jack Laws, a fantastic naturalist.

We purchased this field guide to take on dayhikes and camping trips in the Sierra's with our 5 yr old daughter. We have thoroughly enjoyed it! It is very easy to use. I looked at many field guides and this one is by far the easiest to use. Small children can become bored easily on a hike. The field guide has made hiking more interesting for our 5 yr old. She finds it great fun to identify new flowers,plants,birds,ect. It delays the inevitable, "Are we there yet?" !

The detail drawing make it easy to identify the plants and wild life.
A great way to learn.

I have at least 10 books specifically on Sierra wildflowers and several field guides. This is the best all-in-one book. It's not too heavy for me to carry on a day hike.

Janice
in the Sierra

The book was delivered when promised and was in better condition than I thought it would be!

Item arrived as described. It took a little longer to arrive than I expected, but not terribly slow.

I doubted the content of the book at first thinking it'll just tell of normal business laws. But after the first chapter, I found this book actually being helpful in providing examples of cases that actually happened and how the business laws were applied. Even for normal reading, the book is surely interesting.

I initially began studying with the Emanuel's, but switched to the Gilbert's because it covered more topics in greater detail than the Emanuel's. In my preparation for the California bar exam, I appreciate the Gilberts' inclusion of specific citations to California law where appropriate.

As a professional eco-friendly interior designer, I find Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet by Norma Lehmeier Hartie to be an indispensable tool for my work.

This book started the "green part" of my career. The sections on green living and green products for the home, along with the hundreds of resources, taught me everything I need to know--and where to purchase--green products for the home. There is also a chapter on organic and healthy food and eco-friendly personal care products and on cleaning supplies.

I utilize the tips on organizing and de-cluttering for my clients, too. (For those clients that simply can't get rid of stuff or organize, I give them the book as a gift! It works!)

The sections on Feng Shui are fantastic. Hartie makes difficult concepts easy to understand and execute. I also appreciate the fact that she takes Feng Shui into the 21st century and advises based on Western culture what makes sense. Superstitions based on eastern culture from 1000's of years ago are replaced with down-to-earth and timely advice.

As an interior designer, color is a big part of my job. Hartie incorporates the psychology of color into decorating and this works really well. For example, cool colors like purples and blues work best in rooms that need quiet--like bedrooms--because they will decrease your blood pressure and allow you to rest.

The book has tons of information, but it is easily understood and includes a good index for future reference.

Harmonious Environment is a must-have!

Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet, by Norma Lehmeier Hartie, is an indispensable reference book for anyone who cares about their health and well being and for the future of the planet.

Hartie concisely covers a wide range of subjects and includes a comprehensive listing of advisory organizations, product and service resources. Part I of the book, "Banish the Ugly from Your Life," is a blueprint for green, sustainable living. Discover how to replace toxic and unsustainable products from household cleaners to food (including recipes) to furniture to personal care products with safe, eco-friendly ones. Hartie is the tough but motivational Life Coach in her approach to cleaning, removing clutter and on organizing the home or office.

Part II, "Bring in the Beautiful to Create a Harmonious Environment and Self," includes a chapter on Earth-based spirituality and a fascinating look at the Four Elements (Earth, Fire, Air and Water) and the Medicine Wheel. The core of Hartie's philosophy blossoms in Chapter Seven, "Applying Harmonious Adjustments(tm): Using Feng Shui and Other Techniques for Powerful Results." Unlike other Feng Shui authors, Hartie has experience as a designer and her skills are apparent in this chapter and the following two. She has combined principles of Feng Shui, the Four Elements, color, energy, Vastu, creative visualization, and good design principles that create a unique and eclectic approach to home decorating. Finally, Hartie provides guidance on how to manifest personal or professional desires.

In Part III, "Putting the Pieces Together," Hartie skillfully integrates the many subjects of the book into a unified and cohesive whole.

At its cover price of $19.95, Harmonious Environment is a value alone for the comprehensive green living product suppliers in the Resources section.

What makes this book so truly ambitious, however, is what lies beneath the surface. In a sense, this book is only marginally about decorating ones home per se; it is a tome about personal transformation and about saving the earth. A theme that runs throughout the book is that all beings on earth are interconnected energetically. It is empowering to read that each person has the ability to manipulate their homes and self to both raise the collective energy and to manifest their own desires. Motivational, enlightening and well organized, Harmonious Environment is one remarkable book.

The most impressive aspect of Harmonious Environment is the cover of the book. I found the information to be very basic, idealistic, or common sense. If someone has lived in total chaos and now wants to morph into harmony, this is the book for you! If, however, you're already seeking harmony in your home, I would not recommend this book to you. Harmonious Environment is a primer and only for beginners.

This is a great book for both the beginner and those working on clearing their environment. A very interesting read.

This book has a little bit of everything - feng shui, zodiac signs, dowsing, recipes, and organizational tips. It's so full of information it can be a little overwhelming, but she does organize the book very well. I enjoyed the food recipes and the recipes for natural cleaning solutions. The author also states that dogs prefer positive energy and that cats prefer negative energy, which I have long suspected.

The book has too much of a mystical hoopla vibe for me, though. I stopped when she got to the section about the negative effects of tampons on my spiritual energy or whatever.

Many reviews have covered this more in depth than I will here. Reinventing the wheel is not my objective. As a spiritual worker, counselor, and teacher, I have to say that the Ra materials (and this means all 4 books of transcription) are basic. They create an understanding of who and what we are and where we are going. Understanding our place with respect to service to other-selves or service to self is the start of wisdom. Further, while some argue that service to self is indeed service to the whole, these writings give clear understanding of why you may wish to follow a service to other-selves path in preference to service to self. If your heart presses you to spiritual growth, start here.

I discovered this material in the early '80s about the time it was released. I was blown away then and still am. I'll never forget the feeling - something similar to having uncovered a profound and precious secret. I remain convinced that other than ACIM, this may be the ONLY channeled material out there that is what it purports to be. Much more recently, I've begun kinesiologically calibrating books, people, spiritual teachers, institutions with the method taught by Dr. David Hawkins. The Law of One books collectively calibrate (or they did with my calibration) at over 800, in fact somewhere in the neighborhood of 850 if I remember correctly. Astounding, considering that Hawkins states that less than 5% of channeled material calibrates over 455.That's about all I can say. Uh...Adonai.

This book contains very interesting information inside which I'm not sure if they are true or false.. But, it is so detailed and realistic that I want to believe it and after I read the book, I realized that it may be like the book says.. Ra Materials answer all the unknown about cosmology, from where men came, what will happen etc... Even if the book is full of false information, it is worth reading because of it's interesting theme..

The Ra material is the transcription of the taped communications between researcher Don and the entity RA, a being that is talking through Carla, often referred to as the "instrument" throughout the book (s), in a state of deep trance. The transcriptions are carried out by Jim and the three are always present during all sessions, creating a triangulation of light that allows for RA, a sixth dimensional being, that calles itself a "socialmemory complex", to come through and speak.

RA has choosen this group because of the purity of their intent and makes himself available to them for questions about the Universe, the Creator, the dimensions, Karma, the law of One and any other material that might aid people in understanding universal truths that might be helpful for mankinds evolution.

The materail is very esoteric and requires some concentration. However, it is well worth the effort, as it is enlightening, very precise, accurate and informative. The explanations around the shift in dimensions we are about to undergo on the planet, that Ra defines as the harvest, are devoid of hype and sensation. Harvest is a process that all beings and planetary bodies eventually encur, following physical/spiritual law just as eclipses do or the seasons.The science of the harvest ( ascension) is explained in depth here as is the chakra system and it's role in Soul evolution.

Also extremely interesting the explanation of the polarization of entities into Service to Self orintated entities and Service to Others orientated entities and the implications these have in the ascension process and the roles they play within the bigger picture.

A really deep read and well worth the effort. I have read all four volumes and I am about to tackle vol 5. I thoroughly recommend it.

There is a lot of channeled material out there, some good and some not so good. I think it is important to use discernment when reading channeled material, just as it is important to use discernment when reading anything, or when listening to a preacher talk.

Ultimately, the truth is inside of us, but we don't know it. So it helps to have it confirmed by `outside' sources. Sometimes we come across something that has that ring of truth in it, and we know it is appropriate for us in this point of time in out lives. Not necessarily appropriate for everyone at all times, or even for ourselves at all times, but appropriate in the now, for where we are at right now.

Thus, I have encountered many books and other sources of info that have all had varying degrees of what I consider `truth', but no one of them being THE TRUTH. (I have long ago dismissed the bible as THE truth, but consider it to have SOME truth in it, while most of it has been distorted.)

The Law of One books are the closest I have found to being THE truth. Many of the channeled works out there are cheesy, or they come across too `authoritative' ie `...in such-and-such year this WILL happen...', `...that IS the way it IS...', etc.

Ra, on the other hand, does not claim to be an authority. Rather, this entity repeatedly tells us to please use discernment and accept only that which resonates as truth within ourselves. Then proceeds to give info that totally rocks your socks off!

This stuff is deep, very deep. I have never read anything else, channeled or not, that even comes close to such high caliber! It is just completely obvious to me that the info really is coming from a higher being, cuz no way anyone could have made all this up!

OK, maybe someone could have. But this info came thru a woman in a trance, and she did not even know what she was saying until she woke up. Even very specific details are consistent throughout the text, over the course of several years of channeling.

AND, the material describes a cosmology that was ahead of its time. Certain aspects of quantum physics, for example, described in the books had not yet been discovered. So no, no one could have made this up!

When you read the material, you get a very strong sense of HIGHER KNOWLEDGE. It's just really obvious that this is NOT coming from a human source, the way most other channeled material seems to be. I had a lot of 'Aha' moments while reading it...in fact, pretty much every sentence!

But, my purpose is NOT to try to convince you. B4 the skeptics start, let me say that I am NOT trying to prove that this channeled work is authentic - if you are searching for absolute proof, then clearly this book (or any channeled work) is not for you. Better to stay in an organized religion and do as they tell you.

However, if you are a serious seeker who is not afraid to think for yourself, then I highly recommend you give these books a try. Prepare to have your mind opened!

If you're still with me, then maybe you'd like to know what the books are about. OK, for starters: the nature of life, the universe, how the pyramids were built, who the aliens are, the chakras, other dimensions, the important elements of a spiritual path, the nature of sexuality, etc. and lots of other interesting topics. But that is not what makes these books stand out - other books have tried to address these topics as well.

What makes the Law of One stand out is the explanation of `Good' vs `Evil'.

If you find the idea of a `good God' being in a constant war with the `evil Satan' oversimplistic, or if you believe that God is all-powerful and beyond good and evil, or if you have a hard time believing that God will `lose' most of the world's population to the `devil', and you are searching for a more intelligent explanation of why there is evil in the world, then these books might be for you.

Or, if you are tired of all the `doom and gloom' prophecies and would like to rekindle hope, then these books might be for you.

Be forewarned: these books are NOT light and fluffy. And whatever you believe, they will challenge you. But they will also inspire you, and give comfort.

This is a great CD as an introduction to meditation and how to do it.
Also, I use it to calm my self and stop a lot of the inner chatter that goes on. I highly recommend it.

The power we have over ourselves usng creative visualization is infinite. This was easy, relaxing and perfect for people who want to tap into themselves. One of the best purchases ive made.

I was looking for a creative visualization meditation program that I could listen to in the mornings when I woke up. There are several short meditations on this CD that are perfect for that and don't take much time. What I also like is the 30-minute relaxation & goal visualization session that I can listen to at night before bed. I regularly have this CD is my car when I need to relax or motivate myself with positive thoughts. The CD is 60 minutes long, but you can easily listen to it in short pieces if you don't have an hour to spare.

The case was broken in shipment because the CD had not been packed properly/at all. It was shipped in a manila envelope with no cushion or bubble wrap whatsoever.

I recommend Shakti Gawains Creative Visulization Meditation CD. It's
certainly not the best one out there, but is good for beginners. This 60 minute CD is much better then the original book on tape she did years ago. On that tape, she read very fast, she sounded unenthusiastic, the meditations were rushed, so I couldn't get much out of it.

Here, she reads slow and her voice is calm and relaxing. The added music is pretty good, however I would have wanted a little more time spent with her guidance through the creative visualizations.