Access Your Brain's Joy Center: The Free Soul Method

If you are an MIT graduate I'm sure this is an easy read. I am not and for me it was very hard to get into. I went to a seminar by the Author, Pete Sanders, and got some of information that way, which made it much easier for me to absorb. I lent the book to a friend indefinitely. Perhaps some day I will dare to pick it up again! I gave the book 4 stars, maybe because the person behind the book is so genuine and good and I know his message is worth receiving! However, if you are like me and have a hard time reading scientific mumbo-jumbo and technical terms, you might be better served to pick up his 10 week course on CD or go to one of his seminars! His website is [...]

First of all, this is not just another self-help book. In the first 40 pages, the author uses very simple, straight-forward instructions to teach you how to stimulate the pleasure and mood-elevating responses (through the Septum Pellucidum) in your brain easily, naturally, and AT WILL. Out of 214 pages, those first 40 pages alone earn the book 5 stars! In fact, he specifically wrote the book so that you could just read those 40 pages, containing the deceptively simple instructions, and walk away with an incredible new ability for life! That's the good part. Here's the not so good part - after those first 40 pages, the book seems to lose it's focus and wander aimlessly all over the field of self-help and new age fluff. The author seems intent on describing how to apply the technique to every conceivable ailment known to humanity. Unfortunately, he never stays on any one topic long enough to really discuss anything in depth, including the technique itself. So, for me personally, the value of the book dropped dramatically just after the first chapter. On the bright side, knowing what I know now, I would have happily paid five times the price for that one chapter alone. I just think this book and it's author, missed an opportunity to discuss in laymen's terms, the hard science and biofeedback theory behind the actual technique itself. After all, there's more than enough new-age self-help methods going around, but this one is actually rooted in physiology. It's a chance to appeal to a larger audience through simple scientific fact. Regardless, my advice is whether you're an avid new ager, an agnostic explorer, or even a hard core skeptic, find a copy of this book, read to page 40, and just follow the simple instructions. Because this isn't about believing in a new age self-help method, it's about feeling an ability that you already have, but may not be aware of - the ability to trigger your brain's reward system and feel really, REALLY GOOD, INSTANTLY, AT WILL! This is not the kind of thing you read about and then never get around to using in real life. Once you learn how to do it, it simply feels so good, you'll probably find yourself doing it all the time, without even thinking about it. All those other benefits, like pain reduction and mood-enhancement just seem to happen as a by-product. The amazing thing is, triggering this effect just becomes a habit, because the more you do it the better it feels and the better it feels, the more you'll find yourself doing it! And if that's not self-help, I don't know what is.

I have read a slew of this type of book and I really got a lot out of this one. The exercises are clear, concise and the visualizations are not too complicated. I enjoyed the relaxed teaching style and anecdotes. Like Nathaniel Friedland, Pete Sanders is an author that is a pretty basic guy who taught himself to open up to his psychic centers. I very much admire his work and just bought the correspondence course! Looks like fun! Buy this, it is a great book and very well worth the price.