Illustrated Elements : Crystal Book

Some people are big fans of this book, and that is fine, but it just wasn't for me and so I plan to resell my copy online.

More than anything else, I don't see the point of putting so much effort into buying and taking herbal, aromatherapy, homeopathic and folk remedies when nutritional deficiencies are rampant and are the major cause (along with a high toxic load) of most diseases. These therapies can be useful, possibly, but surely it is far more important to correct actual deficiencies of nutrients that the body needs to function, before taking extra herbs and things that cannot really help very much anyway, while the major nutrient defiencies remain.

They are just band-aid solutions and don't get to the real heart of the matter at all.

I disagree very much with these therapies being listed in a way that gives them equal importance with basic nutritional and orthomolecular medicine. They are not as important and are secondary treatments at best rather than primary.

I could also have done with far fewer pictures and a lot more detailed information. Even serious diseases were given such little amounts of text explaining how to treat them. The information is therefore very superficial. It may well be exciting and helpful if this is one of the first books you have ever read on this topic, but if you're already quite well read, there is nothing here you wont have read before, and in far more complexity and detail, in many other books. Some of the information in the book was also very outdated and much of it disagreed with other experts in the points being discussed. (The very poor section on vitamin C for example.)

I bought this book after being impressed with parts of Dr Shealy's website, as well as a prompt and very helpful answer to a question I asked via the website, but I found the book nowhere near as good as the website, unfortunately. I'd instead recommend books by Dr Sherry Rogers, Dr Lawrence Wilson, Dr Abram Hoffer and Andrew Saul, among others.

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.