Invasion Revealed
Healing Alcoholism, Mental Illness and Drug Addiction
A self-help guide to healing sickness and addiction through self-love and the teachings of Jesus, Invasion Revealed is brief but ambitious.
Nancy Lynne Harris’s Invasion Revealed posits the theory that alcoholism, drug addiction, and various forms of mental illness and dementia “are caused from the individual’s unintentional neglect and/or ignorance of the spirit nature of the Self.” To bolster her case, Harris—a shaman and spiritual teacher—utilizes excerpts from the New Testament, works by other spiritual teachers and mediums, and her own experiences with overcoming depression after the tragic death of her son. The book is split into two short chapters—“Invasion Revealed” and “Attitude is Everything”—before concluding with resources to help apply their lessons, from a 12-step plan to heal mental invasion to a list of healing affirmations.
Though the volume is brief, its points meander, resulting in a disjointed reading experience that hinders the book’s success in proving its ambitious arguments. After an initial focus on the importance of self-love and counteracting negative self-talk to support mental healing, the text veers into attributing all forms of “dysfunction” to the influence of evil spirits, up to and including demonic possession. Salient suggestions on reversing negative self-talk, including using a thesaurus to find the exact opposite words, are drowned out by jarring statements linking Alzheimer’s to the mind being “completely captured by demons” and blaming demonic possession for the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
Harris also recounts her own experiences with suicidal ideation, closing her eyes and searching inward to find five shadowy beings plotting against her in her mind’s eye. The New Testament story of Jesus casting demons into swine is used to validate both her experiences and the conflation of dysfunction with evil spirits, reasoning that, in the Bible, the demons were cast out and the man was well again. Theological conflicts between Harris’s other beliefs—in ghosts and auras, for example—and the Bible are not explored.
Many of the book’s assertions, such as that “dysfunctional illnesses cannot be healed with medicine,” begin with the refrain “We all know,” but are not followed up with scientific evidence or citations. In some instances, statistics are said to exist that support the arguments being presented, but these statistics are never explained in detail or cited. The few sources that the book does produce do not provide illumination on these topics either, and on occasion they undermine its premise. An examination of a quote from James Van Praagh—a renowned medium—is used to explain Harris’s position that all drugs, including prescription medications, open doors for evil spirits to enter and corrupt a person. Such criticisms of psychiatry and psychiatric medication conflict with statements acknowledging the shame around seeking help for dysfunction. The result is a one-sided anecdotal and spiritual manifesto that fails to elucidate its own assertions.
A broad self-help guide to healing sickness and addiction through self-love and the teachings of Jesus, Invasion Revealed is brief but ambitious.
Reviewed by
Danielle Ballantyne
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
