The Seat of the Soul (Paperback)

~ Gary Zukav (Author) "The evolution that we learned about in school is the evolution of physical form..." (more)
Key Phrases: dolphin soul, multisensory personality, nonphysical dynamics, United States, Divine Intelligence, Garden of Eden (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st, First Edition, First Printing edition (January 15, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067169507X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671695071
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (407 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking and dynamic, January 8, 2000

By A Customer

This book has changed my life. I recommended it to many people. It is not about religion, it is about the spirituality that we all posess in whatever form we choose to express it. A person can take many things from this book if he or she is willing to open his or her mind to the richness of the message presented here. The most important lesson I learned from this book is that it helped me deal with my father's death, something that I was having trouble doing before I read this book. I am at peace now because by reading Mr. Zukav's book, I understand what it means to have a universal soul, and that my father is not really dead but is part of the universal life force that exists in all of us. It has also helped me to recognize and deal with my food addiction, which I realize now is due to my desire to obtain external power. If you want to find out what external power is, and how the desire for it fuels our addictions then please read this book! The Seat of the Soul is like an owners manual for life.

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read and be nourished., December 8, 2000

By A Customer

If you're looking for a holiday gift for yourself or someone you care about, one of the books I recommend is Gary Zukav's "SEAT OF THE SOUL." While Zukav discusses many ideas on the topic of living from your truth, some made an especially strong impression on me. The first was that human beings are becoming multisensory - they are learning to listen to their intuition: "It is in this invisible realm that the origins of our deepest values are found." Zukav also explores reverence: "an attitude of honoring life" which includes gving of ourselves, not taking from life as though we don't trust that there will be enough. The other main idea I was touched by was that awareness of our feelings allows us to experience compassion for ourselves and for others. Zukav emphasizes the need to take a step back from what's going on in our lives and observe ourselves. This idea rang loud and true for me: "If you are not aware of your intentions, the strongest one will live."

Reading this book deepened my sense of what it means to give. Since this is the season of giving, it's a great time to give this book. If you're attracted to the possibility of living more fully by developing your awareness, I recommend another gift - "WORKING ON YOURSELF DOESN'T WORK" by Ariel and Shya Kane. It is a gentle and profound book about the power of the present moment to transform ordinary lives into exquisite ones. I highly recommend both these books.

84 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Profound, illuminating insights, tainted by absolutism, December 11, 2000

By	S. A. Felton (southern OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's amazing the divergent opinions one gets from reading the reviews of this book. It's also amazing, at least for me, how a second reading can completely change the way I feel about a book. When I read 'The Seat of the Soul' the first time I was completely turned off by the absolutism that is very apparent on many pages of the book. Yet a second reading changed my opinion of this book dramatically. I will cover the positive, and then the negative. One other point I want to make up front - for those who seek 'scientific proof' for spiritual concepts, I am afraid there isn't any under the current scientific model. I read this in many of the reviews.

I believe that Mr. Zukav defines what he intends to cover in the book very well from the outset, which is how to transform oneself from a five-sensory physical being to a multi-sensory 'spirit in a body.' I believe that he also explains what one can achieve in that transformation, which he calls 'authentic power,' remarkably well. Starting from evolution, which he asks us to see as souls experiencing multiple lifetimes rather than survival of the fittest physical beings, Zukav does rehash the basic teachings from Eastern religion, such as karma and reincarnation, but with precision and clarity. His insights are not really new, but they are of reference-level quality - if you should ever meet a person who starts to ponder certain aspects of the soul and were thinking of recommending one book, 'The Seat of the Soul' would be one to consider, for sure.

I liked his using the evolution of science as a metaphor for the evolution of our (hopefully) attaining spiritual consciousness as a species, found on p. 67. Indeed quantum physics has shown, no matter how much the determinists tell us otherwise, that our consciousness does interact with reality and thus creates it, at least in a sense.

Finally on the positive side, Zukav's explanation of how the process in which a person observes him/herself in a non-judgemental way is, next to Krishnamurti's ('The First and Last Freedom' and many other books) 'choiceless awareness,' the best I've encountered, and again all I say is that I do believe that if you follow the process he outlines you will attain higher levels of consciousness. The chapter entitled 'Illusion' is especially good, the way he interweaves that while we do need to learn lessons and know who we are at the deepest possible levels, from a broader perspective it really is an illusion! It is not easy to explain this paradox, but Zukav succeeds well.

Yet as I stated at the outset, the first time I read the book I was totally turned off by the unfortunate absolutism that permeates much of the writing. I agree with the reviewer who asked 'how does he know,' and another review that stated that he is uncomfortable with 'mystery and ambiguity.' This quest for absolute certainty is perhaps my biggest 'beef' with many New Age writers, and it diminishes the insights of 'The Seat of the Soul.'

I will give just one example. I don't think anyone would disagree that in general we get what we put out, but it is not an absolute truth. I have experienced over and over that life gives me *not* what I put out, but rather what I need to learn. I often project a lot of anger, and what I receive is not anger, but rather good feelings, which shows me that my projection is not the way the world is. But by observing it, 'choicelessly,' as Zukav and Krishnamurti teach, at least I transcend it to a certain extent.

I could give many other examples of general truths turned into absolutes, but suffice it to say that Mr. Zukav tends to use expressions like 'in all cases,' 'always,' and other absolutisms carelessly. On p. 53, while discussing reverence in a very meaningful way, he states that a reverent person 'harms nothing.' Excuse me, even vegetarians do harm. I would prefer him discussing this point using terms like ahimsa, which more accurately conveys the idea of 'least harm.'

At the beginning of the book Mr. Zukav claims that 'there is no such thing as an expert on the human experience.' Perhaps he should have heeded his own truth in certain wordings in this otherwise fine book.