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GARY ZUKAV: A FAILURE TO NAME EVIL
By Viola Larson
On Christmas Eve of 1998, Oprah Winfrey featured Gary Zukav and
his book, The Seat of the Soul, on her television talk show. Zukav
has since become a regular guest on Oprah's program. Oprah had changed
her show format in an attempt to promote a more spiritual life-style among
her audience. While her intentions are good and some of her programming
is enriching and beneficial, there is an alarming move toward a dishonesty
that ignores individual sin and corporate wickedness. This is because her
spiritual outlook, as well as that of many of her guests, is decidedly
New Age. Gary Zukav is a prime example. He is the author of several books,
including The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which won the American Book
Award for Science in 1979, and The Seat Of The Soul, published in
1989. Zukav is also one of the founders of Genesis: The Foundation for
the Universal Human. This organization promotes "Soul Circles," which are
independent discussion groups that focus on the book The Seat Of The
Soul. There are many circles across the United States. The book is,
however, an example of a developing amoral philosophy among intellectual
proponents of New Age philosophy. Tragically, the amorality easily slips
into immorality.
Zukav, undoubtedly without intending to, has created an open door for
evil. His philosophy has problems in three important areas. First, Zukav's
philosophy destroys the right of those who suffer to name the evil that
afflicts them, thus destroying both justice and/or redemption for those
who suffer because of their own sin, and those who suffer innocently because
of the sin of others and the tragedies of life. Secondly, Zukav uses his
philosophy to interpret the realm of culture and race. His interpretation
fails to properly speak to evil perpetrated by outsiders against ethnic,
cultural or religious groups. Thirdly, the author widely opens the door
to individual immorality.
Opening The Door For Evil
Zukav sees evil as a negation or absence of something. Many philosophers
and theologians have understood evil in a similar way. Augustine is a case
in point; for him it is the absence of love for God. Unlike Augustine's
Christian orthodoxy, Zukav works out his concepts in a very Gnostic and
Eastern manner. Zukav's sees a lack of light as the evil. According to
Zukav, the soul and the personality are two different things. He believes
the soul is attempting, with reincarnation, to grow into a "multisensory
being," or a being whose personality is aligned with their soul.1
Within this duality of personality and soul is Zukav's division of good
and evil.
IDENTIFYING THE AMORAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEW AGE
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According to Zukav, only the personality can know evil; the soul experiences
good for both itself and the personality. He believes the soul is immortal
and timeless, but not the personality.2
Zukav also believes the soul creates both the personality and the body
in order to heal certain needs of the soul. The author writes, "The
personality emerges as a natural force from the soul. It is an energy tool
that the soul adapts within the physical world."3
Here Zukav brings into play the idea of karma. Karma, an Eastern concept,
connects actions to their effects in such a way that working through the
effects, with each occurring reincarnation, has some redeeming quality.
In most Hindu views, negative karma causes the soul to be in bondage to
illusion (the material world). The soul must continually incarnate because
of karma. For Zukav, however, the soul must balance its energy in order
to become whole. Working out the energy balance is the act of working through
the karma of all the soul's various personalities!4
It is here that evil is given passageway in Zukav's philosophy; and yet,
he seems unaware. He writes:
Since we cannot know what is being healed through each interaction-what
Karmic debts are coming to conclusion-we cannot judge what we see. For
example, when we see a person sleeping in the gutter in the winter, we
do not know what is being completed for that soul. We do not know whether
that soul has engaged in cruelty in another lifetime, and now has chosen
to experience the same dynamic from an entirely different point of view,
as, for example the target of charity. It is appropriate that we respond
to his or her circumstance with compassion, but it is not appropriate that
we perceive it as unfair, because it is not.5 |
Zukav goes on to say, "When we say of an action, 'This is right,' or,
'That is wrong,' we create negative karma."6
While the author pleads for compassion he has torn away the possibilities
of correcting social evil. Contrary to Zukav's view, the man may be lying
in the gutter because he is an alcoholic, he may lie there because he is
poor and ill and the foundations of society (i.e., the church, community
and government) have failed in their duties. It may be the sin of the individual
or the sin of many individuals, but there can be redemption because it
is judged sin. The biblical understanding of sin and redemption is quite
different than Zukav's of human action. Jesus in the Gospel of Luke tells
the parable of the two men who went to the temple to pray. Only the tax
collector was justified because he humbled himself and prayed, "God, have
mercy on me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:9-14). In the book of Hosea, God pleads
with a whole nation: "Return, O Israel to the Lord your God. Your sins
have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say
to Him: 'Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer
the fruit of our lips'" (Hos. 14:1, 2).
God's answer to this prayer rings with poetic beauty: "I will heal their
waywardness and love them freely.I will be like the dew to Israel." And
He promises not only blessings to them but also blessings to those who
"dwell in his [Israel's] shade" (Hos. 14:4-7). With God's mercy and forgiveness
the sinful individual and the sinful society begin a journey toward wholeness
while extending mercy to others.
Karma, Race and Culture
Zukav interjects his philosophy into the realm of culture and race. He
explains that the personality creates its own reality by its intentions,
and that reality is multilayered.7 (Zukav,
like many Eastern religious teachers, believes the material world is an
illusion.)8 The author explains that
within families, nations, cultures and races, individuals contribute energy
(their intentions), which define or create the reality of those groups.
Zukav writes: "Consider the United States, for example, as simply one unit
of energy that is evolving with a particular consciousness. The individual
souls that pass through this collective consciousness expand it, create
nations, create thought forms, create causes and effects, and how it accumulates
karma."9
Zukav continues expanding his concepts into race. Referring to what
he considers one layer of reality, he writes: "If you are black, you -
your soul - has chosen to participate in the evolution of what it is to
be a black human. Your experiences of exhilaration, anger, wisdom, or kindness
help to shape this impersonal energy dynamic."10
Human souls, according to Zukav, are not all at the same level of evolution.
"There are degrees of soul consciousness." A few are still just evolved
from the animal kingdom and need to exist in "a limited sphere of human
life." Zukav believes such a soul may desire "a remote region so that it
can have a gentle life familiarizing itself with the human physical experience."11
According to the author, all of human history, the place that people
live, the birth of a child, the excitement of invention, the horror of
the Holocaust are scenarios created by the agreements between souls to
heal themselves. The scenarios are created to provide a means to balance
previous accumulated karma.
| Pulling all of these various ideas together it can be seen that Zukav
believes each cultural, racial and national group has a soul, which, according
to him, is developed by the various individual souls that make up the group.
The various individual souls are propelled into a great revolution by an
intuitive awareness of their souls, the balancing of their karmic energy
and an awareness of creating reality with their intentions. For Zukav,
a culture, family, race or nation create collectively their reality. It
would seem that in Zukav's philosophy whole groups of people over many
generations are responsible for the illusory-reality in which they exist.
This is the only answer Zukav gives to the plights of such people as the
butchered peoples of Sierra Leone, the Christian and Animist slaves in
the Sudan or the slave laborers of China? The world is full of tragedies
that cry out for judgment as a precursor to solutions. Must we believe
that souls, seeking to become whole, have collaborated together to create
the reality of the Holocaust? Indeed, if the judgment of evil creates further
negative karma there is no salvation for the victim of evil, and there
is no redemption for the one who is evil! (And, we are all included in
both categories!) |
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Furthermore, while Zukav is not suggesting a racist viewpoint, nor insisting
that some groups, cultures or races are more morally advanced than others,
he is offering concepts such as those that fed into the racism of Nazism.
(That is, that various racial groups have souls developed and energized
by its entire differing individual's past and present.)12
It only takes extreme Nationalism or an authoritarian ideology to use such
concepts as a way of insisting that "others" are inferior in development
or impeding the progress of humanity.
Morality as Spiritual Growth
Zukav's third open door to evil, individual immorality, is created by applying
his understanding of energy and consciousness to marriage. According to
the author, marriage is defined as a "collective human idea." The idea
evolved as a means of "physical survival."13
Now, Zukav believes, there is a clearer understanding of pairing between
individuals. He calls this spiritual or sacred marriage. The author defines
such relationships as a commitment "to each other's spiritual growth."
He writes:
Spiritual partners bond with an understanding that they are
together because it is appropriate for their souls to grow together. They
recognize that their growth may take them to the end of their days in this
incarnation and beyond, or it may take them to six months. They cannot
say that they will be together forever. The duration of their partnership
is determined by how long it is appropriate for their evolution to be together.
All of the vows that a human being can take cannot prevent the spiritual
path from exploding through and breaking those vows if the spirit must
move on.14
ZUKAV'S PHILOSOPHY DESTROYS THE RIGHT OF THOSE
WHO SUFFER TO NAME THE EVIL THAT AFFLICTS THEM
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Morality based on "spiritual growth" as the absolute is extremely subjective.
Although Zukav's idea of spiritual growth is focused on marriage, it easily
bleeds into all of life breaking apart all relationships and commitments.
In contrast, those who belong to Christ experience an unbreakable relationship
with the absolute and eternal God. We sinners, constantly breaking our
vows of commitment, are redeemed to live a new life by the blood of Christ
(1 Pet. 1:18, 19; Tit. 3:3-8). The Christian experiences spiritual growth
as the outcome of the renewing of the Holy Spirit who is given to us because
of God's grace in Christ. In our calling as Christians, all good works,
any spiritual growth, are based on an unbreakable relationship with Jesus
Christ. We are called to be loved by God and to love Him in return. Our
ethics are grounded in God's love not in our own spiritual growth. Since
we cannot be separated from the love of Christ we will not easily or quickly
separate ourselves from those to whom we are committed (Rom. 8:35-39). |
A Philosophy of Evil
Listening to Zukav on Oprah's show I was reminded of Yeats' poem The
Second Coming. The poem pictures the fragmenting of the social order
and the slow careless rise of evil. In the poem the converse of Christianity
grows because society disregards the enduring grace of Christ. As Yeats
puts it, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate
intensity." In place of such a monstrous philosophy believers must hold
out the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
Viola Larson has a BA in Philosophy and in Religion Studies, and
a MA in History with a concentration in the Humanities. She is an author
and teacher on new religious movements, and is the founder of Naming The
Grace Ministries (www.naminggrace.org).
1 Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul (New York:
A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1989), 27-31.
2 Ibid., 29, 30.
3 Ibid., 37.
4 Ibid., 41, 42.
5 Ibid., 43.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., "Illusion," chap. 14. Although Zukav explains
that, "Every physical form, as well as every non-physical form, is light
that has been shaped by consciousness" (p. 111), he later devotes a whole
chapter to our human experience as "illusion." He states, "The illusion
for each soul is created by its intentions. Therefore, the illusion is
alive at each moment with the most appropriate experiences that you can
have in order for your soul to heal" (p. 207). This is, of course, inconsistent.
9 Ibid., 114.
10 Ibid., 115.
11 Ibid., 168.
12 George L. Mosse has documented the mixing of non-racial
Spiritualism and Theosophy with extreme Nationalism and anti-Semitism in
his book, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism
(New York: Harper Colophon Books; Harper & Row, 1978).
13 Zukav, The Seat of the Soul, 124.
14 Ibid., 125, 126.
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