Product Description

With the same extraordinary skill that he used to demystify scientific abstraction and the new physics, Gary Zukay, the award-winning author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, here takes us on a brilliant and penetrating exploration of the new phase of evolution we have now entered.

With lucidity and elegance, Zukav explains that we are evolving from a species that pursues power based upon the perceptions of the five senses -- external power -- into a species that pursues authentic power -- power that is based upon the perceptions and values of the spirit. He shows how the pursuit of external power has produced our survival-of-the-fittest understanding of evolution, generated conflict between lovers, communities, and superpowers, and brought us to the edge of destruction.

Using his scientist's eye and philosopher's heart, Zukav shows how infusing the activities of life with reverence, compassion, and trust makes them come alive with meaning and purpose. He illustrates how the emerging values of the spirit are changing marriages into spiritual partnerships, psychology into spiritual psychology, and transforming our everyday lives. The Seat of the Soul describes the remarkable journey to the spirit that each of us is on.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93242 in Books
• Published on: 1990-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.com Review
Gary Zukav's American Book Award-winning The Dancing Wu Li Masters masterfully introduces the layman to quantum and particle physics, as well as Einstein's relativity theories. With a similar dose of amiable, easy-to-understand prose, Zukav guides readers into the spiritual realm in his bestselling The Seat of the Soul.

Zukav questions the Western model of the soul, alleging that the human species is in the midst of a great transformation, evolving from a species that pursues power based upon the perceptions of the five senses--"external power"--to one that pursues power based upon perceptions of the soul--"authentic power." He believes that humans are immortal souls first, physical beings second, and that once we become conscious of this transformation--once we align our personalities with our soul--we will stimulate our spiritual growth and become better people in the process. This insightful, lucid synthesis of modern psychology and new-age principles has been described as the "physics of the soul." Who better to explain such heady concepts than Gary Zukav?

From Publishers Weekly
"A laser is like a whole personality," writes Zukav. In a sequel to The Dancing Wu Li Masters , this exponent of the spiritual side of the "new physics" goes beyond intriguing parallels. In gracefully written sermonettes with titles like "Evolution," "Light," "Power" and "Addiction," he makes a bold attempt to fuse so-called New Age wisdom with modern psychology, science and sociopolitical reality. Zukav posits two types of people: the "five-sensory human" who puts mind over heart, lacks trust, plays power games and can't tap intuition is contrasted with the "multisensory" individual who seeks alignment of the soul with the personality. One section relates personal and national karma to the theory of Gaia, which holds that Earth is a single living entity with a soul. Though Zukav explores themes long familiar to astrologers and occultists, his high-minded synthesis is something more than old wine in a new bottle.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This remarkable treatment of thought, evolution, and reincarnation examines the purpose of the immortal human soul during life and its continuation after physical death. Zukav's extraordinary skill in explaining scientific abstraction and the new physics, displayed in his best-selling The Dancing Wu Li Masters ( LJ 5/1/79), is again evident as he critically questions the link between the existing Western model of the soul and the subsequent lack of meaningful human evolution. Beginning by examining the debilitating effect of this model, Zukav then describes the importance of nonphysical reality, alluding to properties not yet accepted or understood by scientists. Overall, a readable, thought-provoking tome on how our perceptions must change dramatically if we are to survive; will be in demand in New Age collections.
- Kevin M. Roddy, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Maybe for you, but definitely not for me.
Our spiritual paths are wrought and forged from the crucibles of our lives; however, the wonderful thing is that there are also more innocuous reformations for that as well-books, movies, music, people, etc. Everything in life we experience is a rendering for our soul and our spiritual path. As we become conscious of this it is more congruously applicable. For the reason why I have decided to sojourn with that topic is due to the devastating feedback this book has received. It is not that the book should receive five stars or one, the issue is that if you feel that this book is resonant with your soul do not allow the reviews to obviate you from that position. Spirituality is the individual pursuit for one to understand the essences of life, it is not like religion, there is no solidarity.

For me this book was extremely thought provoking, I have thirty pages of notes subsequent to my reading. While I disagree with Zukav on about seventy percent of the book, merely reading it caused me to scribe my own interpretations of the topics that of which I disagreed. Unfortunately, my cerebral spam filter did not allow much of the book to be applied to my base program. I often times found myself pondering, in opposition, more than reading. I drifted off far more than I have with any other book and was "literaturally" placed in a comatose state much of the time. It was indeed, at times, strenuous to overcome the extreme disparity of ideologies between Zukav and me.

Now, I will delve into my severe disagreements:

- I disagreed emphatically with his interpretations of karma and reincarnation, and at times they were quite odious to me. His rendering of how a new life will pay the karmic ancestral debt of its previous life is not something I can fathom. For I feel that we "reap what we sow" in life whether we realize it or not. This may sound repugnant to the previous sentence, but I personally do not believe in karma.

- There was reference that a drunk driver being judged and sentenced is acceptable, but individuals who beat you nearly to death and are not prosecuted is non-judgmental good karma. If that makes any sense at all please further elaborate or correct me if I am wrong.

- I thought his coin of marriage as a "spiritual partnership" was a derivative of spiritual ingenuity and I now refer to it as that, but I found myself disgusted by some of his perceptions of what constitutes that. Specifically, I will refer to the last paragraph on page 125 and its culmination on page 126. To sum up his ignorant ramblings there, he basically says that it is ok for those two individuals to get a divorce, separate after six months or twenty years because the soul knows what it needs and that is acceptable. To me this is a New Age advocacy for promiscuity (which is a sad misrepresentation for the rest of us that are of New Age Spirituality), a dissolution of the concept of marriage and morally disingenuous and insolvent. Personally, if your love cannot bound you with your spiritual partner for longer than six months or twenty years then you have chosen the wrong individual.

- Should psychologist stop working? Zukav believes so, he says the issues that the psychologist work with are merely karmic debts and issues of an individual's past life. Should we not try to help them with the issues that they have? Are we not here to help, aid and guide each other?

- I also disagree with his theories that we escalate through species as we reincarnate and his perceptions of the elements of the soul vs. personality.

In closing on my disagreements I will say that I have found throughout the book that it has been proliferate on any given topic that what I agree with is contiguous to what I disagree with. Whether it be neighboring sentences, paragraphs or even chapters. This book was the first that I have ever experienced this very confusing paradigm. Overall, the vast disparity has given me the opportunity to further define my opinions and ideology on subjects that I had not yet given much thought to.

While I have found much of the book devoid of any possibility of resonance with my soul I have found a few things:

- The chapters of "Intention I" and "Relationships" were, for the most part, applicable to the way I feel and at times stimulated a state of spiritual euphoria.

- Inverting the pyramid to represent the calibration of life down to the soul elicited much enlightenment for me. Especially, being a conspiracy theory reader, seeing the pyramid used to represent the Caste System and the hierarchy of Earth so often. If this is a coin manifested by Zukav I do not know, but it was the first time that I have come across this representation.

- There was one quote extracted from the book that I was attuned to: "So powerful is the energy of the soul....In the creation of the personality, the soul calibrates itself, to take on the human experience."

In the end, the best books on spirituality that I have read are the ones written by the lesser known writers. Is it that the National Best Seller writers have just become avaricious and negate that very diagnoses? At times the unknown writers have a view that is not tainted by gold, and, at least by my perception, their writings are not commensurate to the National Best Seller writers-in a good way.

One of many books to open the understanding of Soul.
I found this book to be THE leapboard into spiritual understanding and empowerment. For me, Seat of the Soul is written in more of a philosophical and scientific language that I understand.
If one is to look at most of the books on these topics we would see that they are all speaking to the same ideas and philosophies. Just as we are all very different and yet the same, so are these books.
I would recommened reading this book as well as The power of now and A new earth.

Wonderful reading for anyone!
This is a very special book, as are all of Gary Zukav. He has a unique perspective about life and how to live it. It will benefit anyone who choses to read it. Pass it on if you do purchase and read it. This book can help anyone who reads it.