A lot of books present manifestion with a kind of just-do-it approach, and it is true that much of the secret of manifestation lies in beginning where you are. However, as human beings living in this time, we are not programmed to look within as a primary place for making things happen in our lives. If we are desiring a new job or a new apartment or a new mate, the first thing we do is look in the classifieds, or go to bar ... in other words, we feel as though we have to do something concrete and definite in order to put ourselves on the road to experiencing the thing that we're desiring. We're not inclined to look within and change the thoughts or impressions that we have about ourselves or the world around us. What we seem to overlook as modern human beings is that a sense of trust in what we cannot see or sense immediately can go a much longer way to getting us from where we are to where we want to be.

In Alchemy of Abundance, Dr Jarow suggests way in which we can develop a feeling of trust in the unseen creative processes that bring about the circumstances in our lives. If we find ourselves in a particular situation, rather than acting right away, we could look more closely at what is happening in order to discover what the situation is trying to communicate to us. Ultimately, we are the ones who create the lives that we live, but instead of blaming ourselves for not "getting things right," we can open up to what is happening on the inside, and, in that way, we become aware of the beliefs and feelings that created the situation in the first place. From that vantage point we can begin to change from the inside out.

This is not a "do-it-quick" method, but something, in my opinion, far more valuable. Manifestation is a process, a way of life, an art. It is the process of examining who we have been so far in our lives, and it presents the opportunity to be something else. Alchemy, he suggests, is an inner "process of self-realization ... that unfolds through the interaction of inner imagery and outer experience." It is the process through which we can observe how our desires become our life, and invites us to have an increasingly conscious part to play in that process. He starts from the premise that we are all abundant beings already; that there is abundance present in our lives whereever we are. It might be difficult to accept at first, but it is a very liberating idea.

Only 81 pages long, it is a book you can easily read in a day, but would take a lifetime to mull over and put into practice. The practice of abundance is not a finite thing, he suggests. It doesn't stop when we get what we want, but goes much, much further than that to transform us as individuals, and ultimately, the world we live in.