Recommended by Andrew Weil in Natural Health, Natural Medicine, Lupus Novice gives a moving account of the author's successful struggle with incurable SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), affecting mostly women. Ms. Chester shares the personal discoveries behind her recovery, and a meditation on what it means for a body to be attacking itself. This enlarged edition updates her story and includes a foreword by the best-selling authority on immune-system disease: the author of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Dr. Jesse Stoff.Laura Chester has written a moving and significant book. On one level, she discusses her personal odyssey through the realm of a serious and inexplicable disease-its history, current cultural status, biology, symbolism, and the doctors of all persuasions who attempt to cure it. On another level, she speaks to the esoteric level of the disease, discussing the initiation into a deeper level of self and a journey through the unconscious and archetypal aspects of nature. On this level, she is an artist more than a patient, an individual who has the power to effect her cure.- Richard Grossinger, author of Planet Medicine