This is a summary of James R. Doty MD'S Into the Magic Shop A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart

Extraordinary things happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart.

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a chronically-depressed mother paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until, at 12, he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart. Doty would go on to put Ruth's practices to work with extraordinary results - power and wealth that he could only imagine as a 12-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth's most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results - until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him.

Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

Available in a variety of formats, this summary is aimed for those who want to capture the gist of the book but don't have the current time to devour the full book. You get the main summary along with all of the benefits and lessons the actual book has to offer. This summary is not intended to be used without reference to the original book.