Cellular Awakening: How Your Body Holds and Creates Light [Paperback]

Wren is a trailblazer with a penetrating insight into how the body really functions. Her book offers a clear but somewhat watered-down presentation of her ground-breaking work, founded on Budwig's stunning discoveries about flaxoil and light and Gerson's admirable knowledge of how to cure tuberculosis, as well as anthroposophy and homeopathy.

I followed her teaching for over a decade: she singlehandedly puts modern medicine to shame. Her perception of the links between seemingly separate different body symptoms is awesome: she shows the connections between officially unconnected symptoms such as pH and blood sugar imbalances with dehydration, with liver and colon impairment, with low body temperature, and with so much more.

She links this with her comprehension, gleaned from homeopathy, of the progression of health problems and how they develop: from lesser to more severe, and from exterior to deeper/interior - but she also offers specific examples from her own experience of how they deepen from one generation to the next and so on, which is possibly unique.

Her profound understanding that health problems affect all spheres is another magnificent tour de force: starting with emotional blocks which first manifest symptoms at the physical level, then move through the mental and finally to the spiritual realm. Yes, others do teach this, but not in the same depth and detail, both practical/physical and spiritual.

Decades ago Wren saw through the control conspiracy intent on keeping humans sick, weak and afraid; she courageously shares her knowledge in her classes (although in this book she focuses on her own positive teachings) as also offered in leading-edge books like Fear of the Invisible, Selling Sickness, Malignant Medical Myths, The Truth About Drug Companies, Racketeering In Medicine, The Great Cholesterol Con, Heart Frauds, Confessions of a Medical Heretic (amusingly written, by a medical doctor, as well as scandalous), The Truth About Vaccines, The Cancer Industry, and Why We will Never Win the War on AIDS.

(It is also be worth knowing about the wonderful book Never Fear Cancer Again by Raymond Francis which is amazingly similar to Wren's views: presenting a central philosophy, it also provides a breakthrough understanding of disease and wonderful knowledge of how to achieve health. By contrast, Trick and Treat by Groves not only turns all government eating recommendations on their head (you will be shocked by the wealth of evidence against everything you have been told is healthy eating) but also disagrees substantially with Wren's advice - it too is a worthwhile, nay essential, read.)

So, why only 3 stars for Wren's book? Partly Wren herself and partly chapter 9, offering her main techniques. Although I knew perhaps a dozen of her students - who all claimed health improvements in themselves (and their clients) and vouched for these techniques - I was unable to discern shining improvements, over the years, in those I was able to follow - nor in myself. Certainly there was no sign of any abilities to "dream new and wonderful dreams and...make those dreams reality" or to "dance in harmony with creation", fabulous though these would be.

Yes, they (and I) did gain some benefit but I believe these were due to the combination of oils/water/magnesium and healthy eating that Wren - who has stated more than once that nutrition is the tool of her trade - recommends, not the traditional techniques (from her background in nursing and naturopathy) such as hot tubbing, hot/cold sequences, different types of enemas, colonics, the slimy linseed teas, fasting, and urine "therapy".

Where I am most doubtful is Wren herself. I marveled that, in this book, she actually points out that an acid body can manifest an acidic personality. Wren was infamous, for example, for having "pets" in class and for creating an environment where the rest hardly dared ask her anything. Wren, always on guard in case credit for her work went elsewhere, was noted for turning on her teaching assistants; for instance, around 2004/5 I heard from a tutor that Wren had dismissed not only one of her most faithful teaching assistants but also the college tutors associated with that assistant.

What has this to do with the book? None of us is remotely close to being perfect but surely Wren should be the best model for her own body of work, which she has practised for decades? Yet, for me, her personality does not seem to have become any less acid over all this time even though creation of a less acidic body is a basic tenet for her. If she is not such a great advertisement, and each of us needs to decide this independently of course, it must call into question her procedures for healing.

I may be a lone dissenter in all this. The book is well worth reading, but I have also found that background knowledge about both teacher and teachings can be highly useful too (think about all those gurus from India).

This book will completely turn your idea of medical intervention on its head .
For anybody who is struggling with health issues that seem to have manifested out of nowhere this is a book for you . One of Barbaras main philosophies is that disease can be inherited especially if those health issues haven't been dealt with properly ( giving anti biotics ,for example ,according to Barbara, doesn't treat the root cause but sends the problem deeper)
This is a truly fascinating book and one which I continue to dip in and out of , am also thinking of joining her distance learning course as a result .

Wren gets straight to the point in this summation of her life's work and delivers a vast wealth of information gleaned from her experience in practice as a Nurse and Nutritionist. She seems to have a complete philosophy; every page delivers something new or surprising and the book should probably be read through more than once to grasp it's sheer scope. It's remarkably readable though, offering a quite unique insight. Some of the ideas are not new to me, but I felt that I understood them in a new light with Wren's explanation.

The emphasis is on how our body can best use light, mixing the best of modern naturopathy, chinese medicine theory and western nutrition, with a nod to Steiner and anthroposophical philosophy. The focus is not only on moving the body to a point of best potential health, but towards it's potential to fully respond to seasonal and universal rhythms (which Wren asserts that many of us have temporarily lost). It also throws a modern light on some of our grandparents' and country doctor's remedies, and why they work. There is a useful glossary and bibliography at the end of the book, with blank pages for your own notes.

Her manner is warm but workmanlike, which nicely balanced the passion she has obviously has for her subject. She does not recommend techniques which shock or endanger the body, and believes that the body does not necessarily need stringent fasts or deprivation in order to heal.

She encourages you to look into your own health picture with a chapter devoted to an in-depth and revealing questionnaire followed by a comprehensive guide to interpretating that information, though you'll have to cross-reference the earlier information to get the best from it. Wren highlights that the body cannot act randomly, but takes an often predictable path towards illness and shows how one can retrace steps back towards better health. There are 3 case histories at the back of the book to refer to for guidance, quite helpful when you are looking to understand your own health history.

I feel she could have written on for another 243 pages and hope to see more from this author in the future.