Niomi Smart, blogger and entrepreneur, is passionate about healthy eating and living well. After graduating with a LLB Law Degree, she realised that something didn't feel quite right and decided to start a YouTube channel and lifestyle blog to share her food plans and style ideas. Five years later she has amassed a global audience of over 1.5m YouTube subscribers and Instagram followers alike and has even started her own business, SourcedBox, a snacking service designed to work wonders on your well-being.

Tim Dowling is the author of several books including the Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year, How to be a Husband. His popular weekly Guardian column charts the ups and downs of his family life.

Neil Somerville has been writing the bestselling ‘Your Chinese Horoscope’ series since 1987 and, as his readers have discovered, these are no ordinary Horoscope books. Although they do contain predictions they also give much encouraging advice and this is what attracted Neil to Chinese horoscopes so many years ago. They are a great indicator of trends to come and, once aware of these, it is possible to adapt and benefit from this knowledge.

Alice is a pint-sized personal trainer with a passion for health and fitness. Having spent the majority of her formative years developing unhealthy habits through trying every diet there was, and gaining weight as a result, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Alice tracked her complete lifestyle change progress through her now hugely successful Instagram blog ‘Clean Eating Alice’.

Joseph Polansky is a leading US astrologer who has been practising astrology for over 20 years.

Joseph Polansky is a leading US astrologer who has been practising astrology for over 20 years.

Joseph Polansky is a leading US astrologer who has been practising astrology for over 20 years.

Joseph Polansky is a leading US astrologer who has been practising astrology for over 20 years.

Richard Carlson PhD is a stress consultant in private practice and the best-selling author of numerous books, including Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and Slowing Down to the Speed of Life. He is also the co-author of Handbook for the Soul.

Joseph Polansky is a leading US astrologer who has been practising astrology for over 20 years.

Mary Clark is a certified nutritional advisor and diet consultant and has written extensively on the subject.

Jacqueline Memory Paterson is Archdruidess of Glastonbury and currently holds the Bardic Chair of Avebury. She put many years extensive research into Tree Wisdom

Robin Sharma, LL.B., LL.M., is one of the world's top experts on leadership and personal development, having helped millions of people to live their best lives. He is the author of 12 major international bestsellers, including The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The Greatness Guide. His work has been published in over 60 countries and in nearly 70 languages, making him one of the most widely read authors in the world. Robin is CEO of Sharma Leadership International Inc., a coaching and training firm that counts Microsoft, Nike, IBM, GM and Panasonic among its clients. His website, robinsharma.com and blog robinsharma.com/blog are among the most popular personal success destinations on the internet.

Michael James is a culture and lifestyle consultant, International yoga teacher and founder of Boys of Yoga.Boys of Yoga is a global movement helping to challenge and shift stereotypes of men in yoga. Michael is a leading voice in the modern wellness world. He lectures throughout US, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and NZ, leading classes, talks and events across the world.

Kate West is the author of The Real Witches' Handbook and The Real Witches' Kitchen. She is Media Officer for The Children of Artemis and High Priestess of the Hearth of Hecate, which runs a popular email support and enquiry service for Witches around the world. A practising Wiccan for over 30 years, she has excellent international contacts.

Since 1989, award-winning journalist Lynne McTaggart has shaken the British medical establishment and earned the loyalty of many thousands of readers as editor of her monthly newsletter, ‘What Doctors Don’t Tell You’. She has written a book of the same title and is now researching further into alternative and vibrational medicine. She lives in North London.

Kate West is the author of The Real Witches' Handbook and The Real Witches' Kitchen. She is Media Officer for The Children of Artemis and High Priestess of the Hearth of Hecate, which runs a popular email support and enquiry service for Witches around the world. A practising Wiccan for over 30 years, she has excellent international contacts.

C. Norman Shealy is the founder of the American Holistic Medicine Association and a world-renowned neurosurgeon. He is the author of The Complete Family Guide to Natural Home Remedies and The Self-Healing Workbook.

Drew Manning, a natural fitness junkie and devoted personal trainer, had never been overweight in his life. He never craved junk food or missed an opportunity to work out. Yet despite his obsession with fitness, he failed to help his clients reach their goals. Something had to give. Manning needed to understand what it was like to be on the other side—spend a few months in his clients' shoes or, rather, size. For six months, Manning radically let himself go. He stopped exercising and ate nothing but the typical American diet of fast and processed foods. Not surprisingly, he started to gain weight. Manning made national news when he posted a blog revealing that he had gained more than 60 pounds (he ended up gaining 75). In only half a year, the out-of-shape trainer-turned-blogger had gained more than he ever expected—and not just in pounds. Manning devoted the next six months to losing the weight as quickly as he had gained it. The lessons he learned were priceless, as he had now experienced both sides of the weight-loss battle. What started as a physical challenge became an emotional and mental wake-up call. In Fit2Fat2Fit, Manning reveals the practical takeaways and profound in- sights of his yearlong journey. With startlingly honest stories, concrete easy-to-implement strategies, recipes, exercises, workout routines, meal plans, and much more, the reader is fully equipped to achieve any weight-loss goal.

Foodist is a manifesto about real food and real science that proves once and for all that sustainable weight loss is possible by incorporating fresh, seasonal—and delicious—ingredients into every meal. If you picked up this book, there's a good chance this is not the first time you hoped a new eating plan would help you lose weight. Dieting is a popular hobby in the twenty-first century, and the result is typically a slow but steady weight gain over the years. Oops. Diets fail because they rely on willpower and restriction for achieving health goals, and ignore the reasons these tactics always backfire. Becoming a foodist helps you give up dieting forever and get on the real path to healthy, lasting weight control. Foodist is an approach that actually celebrates food while taking you through the nutrition and psychology involved in eating well to help you move beyond the daily obstacles and bad habits that keep the tasteless, empty, and unsatisfying food-like products on your plate. Losing weight no longer has to be about sacrifice, deprivation, and willpower, and food will turn from something you fight into something you can actually love again. As Darya writes, "You don't need a diet. You need an upgrade." Smart, accessible, and engaging, Foodist will help you tailor your eating habits to match your lifestyle and your food preferences, making sure the path you choose works for you in the short- and long-term. Not only will you permanently build healthier habits into your daily life, you'll lose weight and enjoy food like never before.

Even if there is a realm beyond mortality, would finding it improve our lives on earthWhat use is Spirit to a troubled worldDo prayer and meditation workAs a young man in search of love and a purpose to live for, the author could not fit within the world he found. Longing to be useful but unwilling to conform, he went out to South America. It wasn’t so easy. Alone on a mountainside one day, an inner voice said, ‘To make whole, be whole’. This was a turning point. He realised that, before being able to help others, he first had to work on himself. Once back in England, he found a method of meditation. Love of nature led him to become one of the first organic farmers but, when asked what he really wanted in life, he answered ‘God’. He’d been schooled in the Christian faith but was not at this time attracted to the Church. Meditation proved an ideal accompaniment as further adventures took him to Africa and, in particular, the desert. Later, at a low ebb in the USA, he ‘met Jesus’, which brought his practice of meditation and Christianity together. At the age of 51, he re-entered university to study Russian prior to visiting his mother’s homeland for the first time in 1991. This led to several years living in Russia, where he realised the similarity between his own practice and traditional Orthodox ‘prayer of the heart’. The book is based on notes of the author’s unfolding spiritual experience, which taught him that the wholeness he sought is actually – Spirit. How is it attainedWith many encouraging examples he shows how, with patient perseverance, the grip of the ego with all the restrictive unhappiness it brings, can be released. Being then more open to the influence of Grace, we may come to discover the Kingdom of God – our original, spiritual and perfect home. Dear John, ‘I hope you won’t mind my addressing you by your Christian name but having read your book twice as well as highlighting many paragraphs to study, I feel you are a dear friend. I am writing to say that your profound insights are enormously encouraging, an awakening, a wonderful inspiration for me, and I feel so fortunate to have found them. Your experiences in Spirit are conveyed so clearly and simply ‘ I find them truly uplifting. Every day I read some pages and always seem to find something new. I feel extremely grateful that you chose to write of your experience ‘ your legacy is to inspire countless other people, and to enrich their lives as you have mine.’ ML, 2011 Dear Mr Butler, ‘I am over half-way through your book ‘Wonders of Spiritual Unfoldment’ and feel I would like to express my gratitude to you for helping me gain clarity in the process of awakening. It is difficult to express in words the way your writings from personal experience have helped crystallise my sense of ‘Being’ in Reality. Your notes on waking from the dream or illusion we mistake for life and the sense of non-attachment to the world this engenders ‘ greatly assist me in releasing my conditioned perception. It is wonderful to find that someone living so near me, geographically, can write with such clarity and, knowing that you are here in the flesh confirming the truth of the possibility of waking up, has been a great affirmation to me and is supporting me in my own journey of awaking or coming home. Thank you so much.’ L, 2011 ‘This is a moving, honest ‘ and long ‘ spiritual autobiography, interestingly given in two voices: contemporary notebooks interlaced with present day ruminations. Butler met the meditation early and it colours his early days of self-sustaining farming after Cambridge, and his many adventures described in detail and with compassion in South America, Africa (sharing keenness of hunger and the haunting splendour of the night skies) and India, culminating in coming ‘home’ to his core way in the Russia of his mother and its Christian orthodoxy. It was love that led him through the labyrinth of his life ‘ a path we all recognise. As he says, ‘to surrender myself and let the spirit act.’ Throughout it is his honesty which makes the book valid for us. His spiritual insights have all been gained through the experience of this varied life which he seems to have accepted with the innocence and enthusiasm of a child. His way is our way. It is a book of vivid de*ion and some very helpful insights.’ Contact 55 – Summer 2011