THE SEAT OF THE SOUL

Mind-numbing New Age sermons from the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979). Zukav's purpose is to ""describe the next step in our evolutionary journey,"" a leap from ""five-sensory"" to ""multi-sensory"" perception. The former causes wars, sexism, marriage, and other calamities; the latter will bring peace, insight, harmony, joy. Alas, Zukav's argument proceeds by dishing out heaping platters of MacSpiritual chopped meat: we get what we give; we must trust our intuition; we create our own reality. While some will embrace these notions, few can welcome the utterly banal presentation that Zukav gives them, as platitudes elbow one another off the page: ""There are so many ways to wisdom and to the heart""; ""Everything in the universe evolves""; ""When you die, you will leave behind your inadequacies."" Others will scratch their heads at his more eccentric beliefs, such as that knowledge of at least some past lives is crucial to self-understanding. And many will wonder how his message represents anything new in human evolution, when said message echoes--without the commensurate insight or beauty--the words of so many ancient scriptures. Boring, didactic, pompous--reading this makes Shirley MacLaine sound like Voltaire at his most tart.