toledoblade.com --

Don Miguel Ruiz has tapped into the mystical wisdom of his Toltec ancestors to find antidotes to much of modern humanity's fear and suffering.

The former surgeon's 1997 book, The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book, has sold nearly 3 million copies, spent more than four years on the New York Times bestseller list, and has been translated into 30 languages.

He followed it with a series of books utilizing the spiritual teachings of the Toltecs - not a race or a nation, according to Mr. Ruiz, but men and women of wisdom and knowledge who taught spiritual truths. The word "Toltec," he explained, means artist, and the Toltecs considered themselves to be masters of the art of living.

Mr. Ruiz's latest book is The Voice of Knowledge: A Practical Guide to Inner Peace (Amber-Allin Publishing, $14), which continues the self-help approach to spiritual and emotional health by utilizing Toltec philosophy. In this book, he explains how society corrupts the natural "voice of integrity" that humans possess, which is evident in the joy and love of innocent children, by replacing it with "the voice of knowledge," which pushes people to become "successful" adults.

This "poisonous," hidden belief system becomes a self-perpetuating cycle when adults who are unable to express or understand their true feelings conform to the social norms, then pass their own "voice of knowledge" along to their children.

Mr. Ruiz, whose parents were Toltec healers in Mexico, quit his career as a medical doctor after a near-fatal car accident in 1979, then began exploring his spiritual roots and sharing his revelations through books.

"What is very interesting," Mr. Ruiz told The Blade in a 2001 interview, "is that I was healing the body [as a medical doctor], and now I am healing the mind."

Another book in the series, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship (A Toltec Wisdom Book), which uses the same strategy of peeling back false teachings to unveil the true self, will soon be released in audio form.

The print version of the book has sold more than 600,000 copies thus far.

The abridged, two-disc audio book is read by the celebrity couple Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker, stars of the TV series L.A. Law.

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Last month's tsunami tragedy sent many Americans racing to their world atlases to study the region of southeast Asia devastated by the ocean waves. The prayer services and spiritual rituals that followed also reminded people of the tremendous religious diversity of the countries ringing the Indian Ocean, from Muslim-dominated Indonesia to the Hindu stronghold of India to the Buddhist nation of Thailand.

The interaction of geography and religion is explored in detail in a new book from National Geographic, Geography of Religion: Where God Lives, Where Pilgrims Walk ($40, 416 pages).

With a foreword by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, the Rev. Mpho Tutu, and an epilogue by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the book traces the history, geography, and teachings of the five major world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.

As one can expect in a National Geographic publication, the coffee-table book features more than 200 illustrations including stunning photographs of houses of worship and religious ceremonies, a multitude of informative maps, and examples of sacred art.

Also included are selected readings from the holy scriptures of the five religions.

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President George W. Bush's personal faith has been the topic of much study and conversation over the years, especially in the months leading up to November's election. One of the most interesting and revealing insights into this subject is available in a transcript of a conference held last month in Key West, Fla., featuring a talk by Michael Gerson, the president's chief speechwriter.

In the lengthy transcript, Mr. Gerson explains how presidential politics and religion have been intertwined since the founding of the nation and how careful he is when including religious references in President Bush's speeches.

Mr. Gerson said there are five categories in which the President employs religious language in his speeches: comfort in grief and mourning; the historic influence of faith on our country; faith-based welfare reform; literary allusions to hymns and scripture, and in reference to providence.

As for the interaction of religion and politics, Mr. Gerson said: "My view is summarized best by Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that the church should not be the master of the state or the servant of the state; it should be the conscience of the state."

Also speaking at the conference was Carl Cannon, a journalist who covers the White House for the National Journal and who wrote the authoritative article, "Bush and God," that was published in the periodical in January, 2004.

A full copy of the conference transcript is available online at www.pewforum.org. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life also can be contacted by phone, 202-419-4550.

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