We all come into this world with "Sacred Contracts," according to bestselling author Caroline Myss. Some know it as a calling. Some see it as a life mission. "In short, a Sacred Contract is an agreement your soul makes before you are born," Myss explains. "You promise to do certain things for yourself, for others, and for divine purposes. Part of the Contract requires that you discover what you are meant to do." Herein lies the rub. Decoding our Sacred Contract requires us to become fluent in the language of symbols and archetypes so that we can interpret dreams, understand the meaning behind "coincidences," and learn to follow our intuition. This is why Myss (The Anatomy of the Spirit) offers an extensive lesson on helping readers recognize their personal archetypes (we have about 12 of them), such as the Avenger (righteous activists), Networker (journalists, messengers), or Prostitute (someone who "sells out" easily). Myss then goes on to help readers create their own "Chart of Origin" (which profiles your "spiritual DNA"), using the teachings of the chakras and astrology. Part science, part ancient tradition, part magic, this book will gratify readers who are prepared to study the fine print of their Sacred Contracts. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
As incongruous as it may seem at first glance to her legions of fans, Myss, a popular intuitive healer and teacher, and the bestselling author of Anatomy of the Spirit, thinks it makes perfect sense to describe her approach to spirituality as that of an archetypal "Saboteur." After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief, she explains in her latest work. In her workshops and readings, she goes "on a search and destroy mission to find my students' spiritual panic.... Deep in the unconscious, our spiritual potential lies in wait for us to release it. Sometimes you will have to blow things out of your own way to get to it." Here, Myss offers her readers a new system for blowing away pedestrian notions of their purpose on the planet. She espouses the ancient notion that our souls enter into a kind of contract before birth that we agree to have various human experiences and even (in Myss's version) to encounter certain people in order to learn lessons. The author includes a technique for arriving at 12 archetypes that rule different areas of our life from career to sex to our highest aspirations. While each of us is controlled in different ways by four "survival" archetypes Child, Victim, Prostitute, Saboteur the other archetypes that flavor our relations to the world are up to us and as richly different as Vampire and Messiah. One value of Myss's ingenious system is that, like the I Ching, it teaches readers to use symbols not as one-dimensional descriptions but as a call to reflection and imagination and a means to see ourselves in a greater light. 18-city author tour. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
A longtime leading voice in the field of energy medicine and human consciousness, Myss turns her attention to explaining how a sacred contract can serve as a compass to help us find our purpose in life. This program, an audio workshop meant to enhance her book of the same name, explains how we can contract with heavenly guides and how we can discover our life purpose using 12 archetypes and a symbolic wheel of life. Myss is at her best in live programs, and this one is no exception. She is at ease with an audience, frequently including personal anecdotes to illustrate her message. Her voice conveys passion for her subject, as well as awe at the mystery she sees as a part of a full life. P.B.J. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
“Caroline has done it again. With her brilliant writing style she is forging ahead to a new frontier of spirituality: awakening your full potential and revealing your contract with God.”
—Sylvia Browne, author of The Other Side and Back

“Caroline Myss has weaved her magic spell once more. Having read her new book, I have a deeper experience of my own ‘Sacred Contract.’”
—Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love


From the Hardcover edition.

Review
?Caroline has done it again. With her brilliant writing style she is forging ahead to a new frontier of spirituality: awakening your full potential and revealing your contract with God.?
?Sylvia Browne, author of The Other Side and Back

?Caroline Myss has weaved her magic spell once more. Having read her new book, I have a deeper experience of my own ?Sacred Contract.??
?Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author and medical intuitive Caroline Myss has found that when people don’t understand their purpose in life the result can be depression, anxiety, fatigue, and eventually physical illness—in short, a spiritual malaise of epidemic proportions. Myss’s experience of working with people led her to develop an insightful and ingenious process for deciphering your own Sacred Contract—or higher purpose—using a new theory of archetypes that builds on the works of Jung, Plato, and many other contemporary thinkers.

Myss examines the lives of the spiritual masters and prophets—Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad—whose archetypal journeys illustrate the four stages of a Sacred Contract and provide clues for discovering your own. Myss explains how you can identify your particular spiritual energies, or archetypes—the gatekeepers of your higher purpose—and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet. Exploring your Sacred Contract will shine a light on the purpose and meaning of your life. You are meant to do certain tasks, you are meant to have certain relationships.

In coming to know your archetypal companions, you also begin to see how to live your life in ways that make the best use of your personal power and lead you to fulfill your greatest—in fact, your divine—potential.

Both visionary and practical, Sacred Contracts is a bold, powerful work of spiritual wisdom. Without a doubt, your most intriguing challenge in life is to recognize your spiritual commitments and live them to the fullest.

From the Publisher
After two New York Times bestsellers, several highly-rated appearances on The Oprah Show, and packed audiences at live events across the country, Caroline Myss has emerged as a leading new voice in the healing arts revolution. Her millions of loyal followers are waiting to hear what she has to teach them next.

From the Inside Flap
New York Times bestselling author and medical intuitive Caroline Myss has found that when people don’t understand their purpose in life the result can be depression, anxiety, fatigue, and eventually physical illness—in short, a spiritual malaise of epidemic proportions. Myss’s experience of working with people led her to develop an insightful and ingenious process for deciphering your own Sacred Contract—or higher purpose—using a new theory of archetypes that builds on the works of Jung, Plato, and many other contemporary thinkers.

Myss examines the lives of the spiritual masters and prophets—Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad—whose archetypal journeys illustrate the four stages of a Sacred Contract and provide clues for discovering your own. Myss explains how you can identify your particular spiritual energies, or archetypes—the gatekeepers of your higher purpose—and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet. Exploring your Sacred Contract will shine a light on the purpose and meaning of your life. You are meant to do certain tasks, you are meant to have certain relationships.

In coming to know your archetypal companions, you also begin to see how to live your life in ways that make the best use of your personal power and lead you to fulfill your greatest—in fact, your divine—potential.

Both visionary and practical, Sacred Contracts is a bold, powerful work of spiritual wisdom. Without a doubt, your most intriguing challenge in life is to recognize your spiritual commitments and live them to the fullest.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
If you have read, listened to, or seen Caroline Myss in action, then you know you aren't in for a touchy-feely "new age" experience. In Sacred Contracts Myss offers lessons in lifeﾒs purpose. In her previous two books, Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Myss expounded on her findings -- which she reached through working with thousands of people -- on how the health of the body is energetically connected with individual life choices and the evolution of the soul. ("Your biology becomes your biography.") Building on these years of service, Myss has honed in on a new focus.

Around 1989, she noticed a new shift in the concerns of her students and clients -- more and more people were asking her not only what to do about their health but also what they should do with their life. "I have frequently been asked, 'Why am I sick and how can I heal?' Ever more often, and more insistently I am asked, 'Why am I here? What is my real purpose?' " She realized that this lack of self-knowledge and connection to purpose had itself become a spiritual epidemic, affecting the quality of our health, relationships, and overall sense of well-being.

"When you are working well with your energy, you are also making the best expression of your personal power. I call this living in accord with your Sacred Contract." In this book you will learn how to discover your own Sacred Contract, or purpose, by learning to read your life story in the symbolic language of archetypes. What archetypes do you have at play in your life? Consider these for a moment, for fun: vampire, mystic, queen, princess, lover, knight, scholar, trickster, wizard, actor, thief, mother, and poet.

Steeped in the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, astrology, Jungian psychology, world mythology, literature, and religion, Myss's symbolic system will enable you to create a personal sacred "chart of origin" based on 12 core archetypes. I must warn you in all fairness, though, that creating your chart of origin will take lots of time and soul searching. This book is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, just right for those who are ready to mine some gold. Good luck! (Jennifer Forman)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

New York Times bestselling author and medical intuitive Caroline Myss has found that when people don’t understand their purpose in life the result can be depression, anxiety, fatigue, and eventually physical illness—in short, a spiritual malaise of epidemic proportions. Myss’s experience of working with people led her to develop an insightful and ingenious process for deciphering your own Sacred Contract—or higher purpose—using a new theory of archetypes that builds on the works of Jung, Plato, and many other contemporary thinkers.
Myss examines the lives of the spiritual masters and prophets—Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad—whose archetypal journeys illustrate the four stages of a Sacred Contract and provide clues for discovering your own. Myss explains how you can identify your particular spiritual energies, or archetypes—the gatekeepers of your higher purpose—and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet. Exploring your Sacred Contract will shine a light on the purpose and meaning of your life. You are meant to do certain tasks, you are meant to have certain relationships.
In coming to know your archetypal companions, you also begin to see how to live your life in ways that make the best use of your personal power and lead you to fulfill your greatest—in fact, your divine—potential.
Both visionary and practical, Sacred Contracts is a bold, powerful work of spiritual wisdom. Without a doubt, your most intriguing challenge in life is to recognize your spiritual commitments and live them to the fullest.

Author Biography: Caroline Myss is an internationally renowned pioneer in energy medicine and the author of the New York Times bestselling books Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can. Her work is featured on her popular website, She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

As incongruous as it may seem at first glance to her legions of fans, Myss, a popular intuitive healer and teacher, and the bestselling author of Anatomy of the Spirit, thinks it makes perfect sense to describe her approach to spirituality as that of an archetypal "Saboteur." After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief, she explains in her latest work. In her workshops and readings, she goes "on a search and destroy mission to find my students' spiritual panic.... Deep in the unconscious, our spiritual potential lies in wait for us to release it. Sometimes you will have to blow things out of your own way to get to it." Here, Myss offers her readers a new system for blowing away pedestrian notions of their purpose on the planet. She espouses the ancient notion that our souls enter into a kind of contract before birth that we agree to have various human experiences and even (in Myss's version) to encounter certain people in order to learn lessons. The author includes a technique for arriving at 12 archetypes that rule different areas of our life from career to sex to our highest aspirations. While each of us is controlled in different ways by four "survival" archetypes Child, Victim, Prostitute, Saboteur the other archetypes that flavor our relations to the world are up to us and as richly different as Vampire and Messiah. One value of Myss's ingenious system is that, like the I Ching, it teaches readers to use symbols not as one-dimensional descriptions but as a call to reflection and imagination and a means to see ourselves in a greater light. (Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In this follow-up to her best-selling Anatomy of the Spirit, Myss augments her work with energy chakras and thoughtfully explores the concept of symbolic archetypes (primordial governing forces of the soul) and the role they play in discovering one's true life purpose. Understanding the specific archetypal energy patterns of the self, Myss holds, contributes significantly to a person's spiritual health and planetary mission (or "sacred contract"). The author outlines the stages of a sacred contract, makes a practical comparison to an earthly (legal) contract, and ponders the use of dreams and intuition. Making this book unique are relevant exercises that can be used alone or with a chakras map and a wheel of archetypes to create working charts for everyday guidance. Although discussion of this wheel is a bit heady, a descriptive appendix of archetypes proves useful for the spiritual self-examination that Myss advocates. Reaching beyond verbal psychotherapy, this book is a sound choice for its validation of the primal energy work that must be done to transform the soul. For psychology/self-help collections of public and academic libraries. Lisa Liquori, MLS, Syracuse, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile