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Sacred Quest: The Evolution and Future of the Human Soul
 
 
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Sacred Quest: The Evolution and Future of the Human Soul [Hardcover]

L. Robert Keck (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)


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Book Description

0877853061 978-0877853060 September 1, 2000 1st

What is the history of the human soul? What is its future? And what is our individual role within the collective whole, particularly in today's world of unprecedented change? 

Scientists have mapped the human genome, but they have not discovered DNA's spiritual equivalent, the embedded coding that shapes what we value and why we think and act as we do. Now, in Sacred Quest, L. Robert Keck frames a compelling science of a collective soul that investigates the deep causal values determining why certain beliefs and behaviors become culturally dominant.

This collective soul, like a butterfly, undergoes transformative stages. Keck explores three distinct phases in the soul's evolution. Epoch I, from 35,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, corresponds to spiritual "childhood" and is marked by unity with nature, nonviolence, and reverence for the feminine. Epoch II, from 10,000 years ago to the present is the soul's "adolescence," an era of patriarchy, hierarchical control, and violence. We live in the "chrysalis" stage of change to Epoch III, our spiritual adulthood, in which the ego will yield to the heart. Current revolutionary transformations reflect the death of humanity's outworn adolescent values and the birthing of new, adult ones.

Sacred Quest is not just a theoretical construct, but is a call for the engagement of one's whole life. Keck shares his own personal struggles to embody the emergent values of Epoch III -- reconnection to nature, democratization of power, respect for diversity and inclusivity, and the expansion of self, to name a few.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Keck, author of Sacred Eyes and The Spirit of Synergy and a former Methodist clergyman who is now a self-proclaimed "born-again pagan," proposes that the human Soul (with a capital S) has evolved in three stages. In Epoch I (childhood), humans were kind and innocent, practicing matriarchy, goddess worship, animism and shamanism, their hunter-gatherer societies living in harmony with nature. How does Keck know Epoch I occurred as he envisions? Through "deep-value research," which entails speculating about the spiritual practices of prehistoric peoples. He acknowledges that these practices cannot be known, yet he somehow senses what they must have been and interprets scientific and archeological evidence (especially cave paintings) to support his theories, while elsewhere dismissing much modern science as unspiritual and materialist. Epoch II (adolescence) has been more turbulent, with wayward humans embracing patriarchy, the metaphor of God as father, "institutional" religion, and agricultural and industrial societies, all of which create violence and oppression. For Keck, fundamentalist Christianity, and conservatism in general, typify everything that is wrong with Epoch II. Epoch III (adulthood) is an emerging age of paganism in which truly spiritual people will become holistic, ecological and empowered, discover new paradigms, and even learn to talk to the animals. (Yes, really.) Readers who strongly self-identify as "new age" or "cultural creatives" may find Keck's ideas compelling, though others will wish for more evidence and fewer unsupported assertions about prehistory's halcyon days. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

I strongly recommend Sacred Quest. . . . [as] a potent and important look at where we've been and where we're going. . . . -- Steve McCardell, The New Times, Seattle, WA, October 2000

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Chrysalis Books; 1st edition (September 1, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0877853061
  • ISBN-13: 978-0877853060
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #864,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed the way I look at life, November 27, 2000
This review is from: Sacred Quest: The Evolution and Future of the Human Soul (Hardcover)
When I came across this book I was looking for something to explain what seems to be happening to us as a humankind, and on a personal level, something to give me hope in the kind of world I want for my children. This book made me see the process of our "Sacred Quests" in a way that I had never considered before. It is a must for people who are seekers, who want to understand how to connect with life in order to derive meaning and purpose, joy and hope. I have passed this book on to my family as gifts in hopes that they too will feel the magnificent connection to something greater than themselves while reading it. It is absolutely an amazing work!
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book for our time, November 11, 2000
By 
K. Taylor (San Mateo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sacred Quest: The Evolution and Future of the Human Soul (Hardcover)
Keck imports the idea of evolution, usually confined to biology, to the spiritual realm and describes the entire human jouney as an evolution of Soul. Somehow, through the subtlety of Keck's prose, the reader begins to see their own life as part of this grand evolutionary journey.

What I really love is that Keck's book simultaneously confounds two ideological groups: conservative Christians and liberal scholars. Conservative Christians, for their part, view theories of evolution as a betrayal of Holy Writ. They will despise Keck's book. As strange bedfellows, liberal scholars would also be highly suspicious of Keck's evolutionary scheme because it presumes progress. To claim that human beings are getting better is a violation of the holy writ of "hard thinking."

Any book that skewers both professors and fundamentalists is a book worth buying.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sacred Quest and the Emergence of the Sacred, November 4, 2000
By 
This review is from: Sacred Quest: The Evolution and Future of the Human Soul (Hardcover)
Bob Keck continues to explore a new frontier in spirituality by leading us into Epoch III. It is an outstanding exploration, of the Soul. He provides the reader with personal insights as well as a continuation of Deep Value Research which he emphasized in his earlier book Sacred Eyes. This is a must book for anyone to read who wants to understand about the emerging spiritual direction, and our relationship to the Sacred.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
How wonderfully appropriate that the first discovery of humanity's childhood Soul was made by a child. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
adolescent epoch, new deep value, mainstream human cultures, maturational journey, peregrine spirit, hierarchal power, caterpillar part, momma bear, spiritualized matter, sacred quest, deep values, past dogma, evolutionary epoch, evolutionary purpose, cave art, astronomical point, spiritual maturation, evolutionary journey
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Deep-value Research, Native Americans, Second Amendment, Black Elk, Winged Spirit Mesa, African San, Joseph Campbell, Charlene Spretnak, Nobel Prize, World Wide Web, Albert Einstein, Big Bang, Richard Leakey, Soviet Union, Supreme Court, Alice Walker, Big Nurse, Carl Jung, David Lewis-Williams, Earth Mother, Father God, Gospel of Thomas, Ian Tattersall, Ice Age
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