Reading List

Authors Like Gary Zukav

In 1975 Gary Zukav's roommate, the physicist Jack Sarfatti, took him along to the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Zukav was not a physicist. Four years later he published The Dancing Wu Li Masters — wu li is the Chinese word for physics — written with a great deal of help from Sarfatti and the physicists around him, and in 1980 it won the American Book Award, as the National Book Award was then called, for science. Ten years on came The Seat of the Soul, which became a number one New York Times bestseller and, from 1998, brought him onto The Oprah Winfrey Show more than 30 times. Readers come to Zukav for one of two books, and they are two different halves: one reads the new physics as a clue to how we see the world, the other treats the soul as something you work on in ordinary choices, through what he calls authentic power. Every writer below meets at least one of those halves, and each entry says plainly which one, and where the match stops.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Spirituality · Physics · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

The closest match to The Dancing Wu Li Masters is Fritjof Capra, whose The Tao of Physics came out four years earlier, from the same Berkeley circle. For The Seat of the Soul, it is Eckhart Tolle. Carl Jung and Deepak Chopra try to hold physics and the inner life together, the way Zukav does. And for the strongest case against the whole project, read Victor J. Stenger.

10 authors like Gary Zukav

01
Physics · Eastern philosophy

Fritjof Capra

Austrian-born American · b. 1939 · Physicist

Capra was born in Vienna in 1939 and took his doctorate in theoretical physics at the University of Vienna in 1966. The Tao of Physics sets the ideas of quantum theory and relativity side by side with Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist thought. He was part of the Fundamental Fysiks Group in Berkeley in the 1970s, and his later books, from The Turning Point (1982) to The Web of Life (1996), move on to ecology and systems thinking.

On the physics half, closer than anyone: both men worked in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s, drew on the same Berkeley circle, and read the new physics alongside Eastern philosophy. The difference is who is talking — Capra was a working physicist, Zukav a writer explaining what physicists told him. On the soul half, only in passing: Capra writes about how we see the world, not about the choices of an ordinary day, and there is nothing like authentic power in his books.

— Lisanne
02
Mind-body · Consciousness

Deepak Chopra

Indian-American · b. 1946 · Physician and author

Chopra trained as an endocrinologist before turning to Ayurveda and meditation. Quantum Healing, published the same year as The Seat of the Soul, argues that the body is run by a network of intelligence and links sudden recoveries to quantum physics. In 1998 the Annals of Improbable Research gave him the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics “for his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness”.

On the physics half, yes in ambition and contested in substance: physicists object that the quantum in his books is a metaphor presented as physics, and the Ig Nobel was their joke at its expense. On the soul half, yes. Like Zukav, he treats consciousness as the thing that shapes a life, and like Zukav he reached most of his readers through television, Oprah's show included.

— Lisanne

Every book by Deepak Chopra →

03
Presence · Spirituality

Eckhart Tolle

German · b. 1948 · Spiritual teacher

Tolle was born in Lünen, Germany, in 1948 and settled in Vancouver in 1995. The Power of Now, first published by the small Namaste Publishing in 1997, argues that most suffering comes from identifying with the thinking mind. In 2008 Oprah Winfrey picked A New Earth for her book club and ran a series of online classes with him, one chapter at a time; she chose it again in 2025, the only book picked twice.

No physics at all: Tolle does not use science to make his case. On the soul half, the closest match on this list. Zukav asks you to notice your intentions; Tolle asks you to notice your thoughts. Both say change starts with what you choose to pay attention to, and both reached their widest audience through Oprah.

— Lisanne

Every book by Eckhart Tolle →

04
Psychology · Physics and psyche

Carl Jung

Swiss · b. 1875 · Psychiatrist

Jung's essay on synchronicity — meaningful coincidences with no causal link — first appeared in German in 1952 in a joint volume with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who contributed an essay on Kepler, translated into English as The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche. It grew out of a correspondence between the two men that ran from 1932 to 1958, later published as Atom and Archetype.

On the physics half, yes, through Pauli: decades before Zukav, Jung was asking a Nobel-winning physicist whether mind and matter might be two sides of one reality. On the soul half, yes, in his own language. Jung writes about the psyche and the self rather than the soul, but he treats the inner life as real work, which is where Zukav starts.

— Lisanne

Every book by Carl Jung →

05
Spirituality · Love and fear

Marianne Williamson

American · b. 1952 · Spiritual teacher

A Return to Love is Williamson's reading of A Course in Miracles, a spiritual text by Helen Schucman first published in 1976. Its argument is that every situation comes down to a choice between love and fear. Williamson promoted it on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992, the year it came out, and it became a long-running bestseller.

No physics. On the soul half, yes: Zukav's practice of choosing your intention and Williamson's choice between love and fear are close cousins. She is more devotional, he is more systematic, and both write for readers who want the spiritual life to show up in how they treat the people around them.

— Lisanne

Every book by Marianne Williamson →

06
Psychiatry · Past lives

Brian Weiss

American · b. 1944 · Psychiatrist

Weiss was chairman of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami when a patient he calls Catherine began, under hypnosis, to describe what he took to be past lives. Many Lives, Many Masters tells that story. Past-life regression has no support in mainstream science, and psychiatrists warn that hypnosis can produce convincing false memories, so the book reads best as testimony rather than evidence.

No physics. On the soul half, yes, on one specific point: The Seat of the Soul treats karma and reincarnation as real, and Weiss is the most widely read writer who does the same. He is narrower than Zukav — one idea, told through case stories — and warmer.

— Lisanne

Every book by Brian Weiss →

07
Buddhism · Mindfulness

Thich Nhat Hanh

Vietnamese · b. 1926 · Zen teacher

The Miracle of Mindfulness began in 1974 as a long letter to Brother Quang, a staff member of the School of Youth for Social Service that Thich Nhat Hanh had founded in South Vietnam, explaining how to stay present while washing the dishes or peeling an orange. It became one of the books that brought mindfulness practice to Western readers.

No physics. On the soul half, yes. Of the values Zukav gives the soul — harmony, cooperation, sharing and reverence for Life — reverence is the one Thich Nhat Hanh built a whole practice around, and his books are the most practical on this list.

— Lisanne

Every book by Thich Nhat Hanh →

08
History of science

David Kaiser

American · Physicist and historian

Kaiser tells the story of the Fundamental Fysiks Group, founded in May 1975 by two Berkeley graduate students, where young physicists met on Fridays to argue about Bell's theorem, entanglement and consciousness. Jack Sarfatti and Fritjof Capra were members, and the group's members helped produce The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Kaiser argues that their arguments fed into what became quantum information science; some reviewers think he overstates the link.

On the physics half, yes, from the outside. Kaiser neither defends nor attacks Zukav's reading of physics; he shows where it came from, and why serious physicists were having the same late-night conversations. On the soul half, no — but it is the best book for understanding how The Dancing Wu Li Masters came to be written.

— Lisanne
09
Physics · Plain language

Richard Feynman

American · b. 1918 · Physicist · Nobel 1965

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is four lectures Feynman gave for a general audience, explaining quantum electrodynamics — the theory that earned him a share of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics — with arrows on a page instead of equations.

On the physics half, yes, but straight. If The Dancing Wu Li Masters made you curious about the physics itself, Feynman gives you the physics without the philosophy. On the soul half, no, by choice: he draws no spiritual conclusions from quantum theory, which makes him the cleanest test of what the physics does and does not say.

— Lisanne
10
Physics · Skepticism

Victor J. Stenger

American · b. 1935 · Physicist

Stenger was a particle physicist at the University of Hawaii. In The Unconscious Quantum (Prometheus, 1995) he walks the lay reader through the paradoxes of quantum mechanics and takes apart the popular metaphysics that grew up around them, singling out writers such as Deepak Chopra and Fritjof Capra.

On the physics half, yes, as the opposition. Stenger argues that nothing in quantum mechanics requires consciousness, which removes the bridge both of Zukav's books stand on. On the soul half, no. Read him after the others, as the strongest case against the whole project.

— Lisanne

Where to start if you loved Gary Zukav

If you loved The Dancing Wu Li Masters, read Fritjof Capra.

The Tao of Physics made the same move four years earlier, written by a working physicist.

If you loved The Seat of the Soul, read Eckhart Tolle.

The Power of Now asks you to notice your thoughts the way Zukav asks you to notice your intentions.

If you want to know where Zukav's physics came from, read David Kaiser.

How the Hippies Saved Physics describes the Berkeley circle that helped him write his first book.

If you want the physics without the mysticism, read Richard Feynman.

QED first, then Victor J. Stenger's The Unconscious Quantum, which argues against the whole idea.

Frequently asked questions about authors like Gary Zukav

Who should I read if I love Gary Zukav?

For The Dancing Wu Li Masters, the closest match is Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics (1975), which also reads modern physics alongside Eastern philosophy. For The Seat of the Soul, it is Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now (1997). Deepak Chopra and Carl Jung are the two writers who, like Zukav, try to join physics and the inner life in one picture.

What books are similar to The Seat of the Soul?

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh all treat the inner life as something you work on through everyday attention and choice. Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss shares the book's belief in karma and reincarnation, though past-life regression has no support in mainstream science.

What books are like The Dancing Wu Li Masters?

The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra is the nearest relative. For the physics on its own terms, read Richard Feynman's QED (1985). For the story of the Berkeley physicists who helped Zukav write the book, read David Kaiser's How the Hippies Saved Physics (2011).

Is The Dancing Wu Li Masters scientifically accurate?

Zukav was not a physicist; he wrote the book with extensive help from physicists, including Jack Sarfatti. It won the 1980 American Book Award for science and is still read as an introduction to quantum ideas. Its spiritual conclusions are another matter: physicists such as Victor Stenger have argued that nothing in quantum mechanics requires consciousness or supports the mystical readings that became popular in the 1970s.

What does Gary Zukav mean by authentic power?

In The Seat of the Soul, Zukav contrasts external power, the ability to manipulate and control, with authentic power, the alignment of the personality with the soul. He argues that humanity is moving from the first to the second, and that the values of the soul are harmony, cooperation, sharing and reverence for Life.

What is Gary Zukav's latest book?

His most recent book is Universal Human: Creating Authentic Power and the New Consciousness (2021). It carries the ideas of The Seat of the Soul from the individual to society as a whole.

Footnotes

  1. Gary Zukav — Wikipedia
  2. How the Hippies Saved Physics — Wikipedia
  3. How the Hippies Saved Physics (review) — Physics Today
  4. 1998 Ig Nobel Prize winners — Improbable Research
  5. The Unconscious Quantum — Internet Infidels
  6. Fritjof Capra — Wikipedia
  7. Carl Jung — Linda Hall Library
  8. The Miracle of Mindfulness — Plum Village

List last reviewed 15 October 2026.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. Every comparison here is a judgement about method and subject, not an algorithmic match. See more on her personal bookshelf.

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