For nearly three decades, Judith Cornell, Ph.D. has been pioneering a new method to help people heal by awakening to their deepest spiritual levels. She uses sacred art, particularly the mandala, transpersonal psychology, and raja and kundalini yoga. She is a popular speaker and seminar/retreat leader. Work with the sacred mandala has been used as a healing tool in schools after 9/11 and in individual and group settings with people of diverse spiritual backgrounds.

In The Mandala Healing Kit, Cornell offers a way to enjoy her teaching in the privacy of your own home at your own pace. The kit contains all the tools you will need to start on this inner journey. The 94-page workbook presents the background of the mandala in India and its appearance in other spiritual traditions, such as the American Indian Medicine Wheel and the Jewish Kabbalah. It also lays out 25 exercises that involve meditation, intention, blessing materials, journaling, and, of course, drawing.

Included in the kit is a CD with seven tracks to be played during specific exercises. Some of these are merely soundscapes with chanting to put the person in a meditative state or to prepare for spiritual drawing. Others require the listener to participate in the song or chant. Two are guided meditations. The kit also comes with 15 stencils, seven colored pencils, a silver gel pen, and small sheets of black paper.

Each chapter in the workbook provides reading material pertinent to the exercises in that chapter. The exercises are fully explained before you begin, and then a list of what you will need for each one is presented. Each exercise has numbered steps that take you from gathering your materials through every part of the exercise. There are even simple suggestions for intentions or prayers. An exercise doesn’t just say draw a mandala that mirrors your inner light, for example. It has you gather your materials, prepare your paper, visualize, choose symbols, chant, draw, and then contemplate. There is a lot of work involved in even one exercise, but it can lead to inner insights.

This kit gives participants a complete seminar for a deeper understanding of their inner selves. I really found The Mandala Healing Kit to be a perfect tool for doing inner work. There is no guesswork about what to do or ways to deepen the experience. It’s all there. And, the kit can be used over and over. Each time the proces s is begun a new intention can be named.

I would recommend buying a package of black construction paper and some softer, more blendable artist-grade colored pencils, since those in the kit are quite hard. This can be frustrating when working on something that is supposed to flow from your inner self.