Mesmerized
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According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, that has not changed. Heart disease is the number-one killer in developed countries. Fortunately, care and early diagnosis are greatly improved, and for those on whom the death sentence of end-stage heart disease is leveled, which was true of Beth Convey in this novel, there is hope—a heart transplant. When one considers how many surgeries offer a patient only a fifty-percent chance of survival, it is amazing that doctors can take a heart from one person and put it into another and know they can expect a ninety-percent survival rate.
What was science fiction forty years ago is now reality. People are walking around with other people's hearts, and some claim to have received characteristics, tastes, and even memories from their donors. Was Aristotle at least partly right? Is there a relationship between a heart and a brain that goes beyond simple wiring?
Only fifty years ago neuroscientists believed all brain matter did basically the same thing. Not until 1995 did we learn many different brain systems were needed to retrieve something as apparently simple as words. For instance, nouns and verbs are stored in separate areas of the brain, an unknown concept just a few years before.
So now it is the year 2001, and our knowledge of the mind-body complex is still in its infancy. Meanwhile, heart recipients are coming forward in the hundreds from self-imposed silence to describe experiences that make sense only in the light of the identities of their heart donors. These anecdotal testimonies seem to attack the foundations of our current scientific, psychological, and spiritual communities. Some consider them offensive. Even heretical. But on the other hand . . . what an opportunity to explore and learn.
If you would like to read more on the subject of cellular memory, I recommend these books:
A Change of Heart: A Memoir, by Claire Sylvia with William Novak. Heart-transplant recipient Sylvia describes her journey from heart failure through her new life with the heart of a young man who died in a motorcycle crash.
The HeartMath Solution, by Doc Childre and Howard Martin with Donna Beech. Childre is the founder of the Institute of HeartMath, to which medical doctors and psychologists refer patients for treatment of such ailments as hypertension and arrhythmia of the heart.
The Heart's Code, by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., psychoneuroimmunologist and author. Here you can read about new cellular-memory findings and their role in the mind/body/spirit connection. Pearsall worked with several heart-transplant recipients.
Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel, by Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., former chief of brain chemistry at the National Institutes of Health and now a research professor at Georgetown Medical Center in Washington. She discusses her theory that neuropeptides and their receptors are the biochemicals of emotions, carrying information in a vast network linking the material world of molecules with the nonmaterial world of the psyche.
The Touchstone of Life: Molecular Information, Cell Communication, and the Foundations of Life, by Werner R. Loewenstein, former professor of physiology and director of the Cell Physics Laboratory at Columbia University and currently director of the Laboratory of Cell Communication at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Because of the tremendous need for organ donations, please consider filling out a donor card for yourself—call (800) 355-SHARE. You can learn more about organ donations by phoning the United Network for Organ Sharing at (800) 933-0440.
New York Times bestseller Gayle Lynds is the award-winning author of ten international espionage novels. Her books have won numerous awards. Publishers Weekly lists her thriller Masquerade among the top ten spy novels of all time. Library Journal hails her as “the reigning queen of espionage fiction.” Lee Child says she’s “today’s best espionage writer.” The Associated Press calls her “a master of the modern Cold War spy thriller.” With Robert Ludlum, she created the Covert-One series. The first – The Hades Factor – was a CBS miniseries. A member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, she is co-founder (with David Morrell) of International Thriller Writers, Inc. She lives outside Portland, Maine, with her husband, a retired judge and author. Please visit her at www.GayleLynds.com.
Novels by Gayle Lynds
Masquerade
Mosaic
Mesmerized
The Coil
The Last Spymaster
The Book of Spies
The Assassins
With Robert Ludlum
The Hades Factor
The Paris Option
The Altman Code