The Celestine Prophecy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Celestine Prophecy | |
 |
|
| Author | Redfield, James |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English + 34 languages |
| Series | Celestine series |
| Genre(s) | New Age, Religious Fiction |
| Publication date | 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-446-51862-X |
| Preceded by | None |
| Followed by | The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (1996) ISBN 0-446-51908-1 The celestine vision:living the new spiritual awareness the secret of shambhala |
The Celestine Prophecy is a 1993 novel by James Redfield that discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas which are rooted in many ancient Eastern Traditions and the New Age movement. The main character of the novel undertakes a journey to find and understand a series of nine spiritual insights on an ancient manuscript in Peru. The book is a first-person narrative of the narrator's spiritual awakening as he goes through a transitional period of his life.
As of May 2005, it had sold over 20 million copies worldwide [1] and had been translated into 34 languages. A movie of the same title, based on the book, was released in 2006. Redfield has published two sequels: The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision and The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight; he is currently working on a fourth book, "The Twelfth Insight".
Contents |
[edit] Summary
The book discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas that are rooted in many ancient Eastern Traditions, such as the claim that vegetarianism can help an individual to establish a connection with the Divine. The main character of the novel undertakes a journey to find and understand a series of nine spiritual insights on an ancient manuscript in Peru. The book is a first-person narrative of spiritual awakening. The narrator is in a transitional period of his life, and begins to notice instances of synchronicity, which is the realization that coincidences may have deep meaning.
The story opens with the male narrator becoming reacquainted with an old female friend, who tells him about the Insights, which are contained in a manuscript dating to 600 BC, which has been only recently translated. After this encounter leaves him curious, he decides to go to Peru. On the airplane, he meets a historian who also happens to be interested in the manuscript. As well, he learns that powerful figures within the Peruvian government and the Catholic Church are opposed to the dissemination of the Insights. This is dramatically illustrated when police try to arrest and then shoot the historian soon after his arrival.
The narrator then learns the Insights, one by one, often experiencing the Insight before actually reading the text, while being pursued by forces of the Church and the Peruvian government. In the end, he succeeds in learning the first nine Insights and returns to the United States, with a promise of a Tenth Insight soon to be revealed. The Insights are given only through summaries and illustrated by events in the plot. The text of no complete Insight is given, which the narrator claims is for brevity's sake; he notes that the 'partial translation' of the Ninth Insight was 20 typewritten pages in length.
In the novel, the Maya civilization left ruins in Peru where the manuscript was found, whereupon the Incas took up residence in the abandoned Maya cities after the Maya had reached an "energy vibration level" which made them cross a barrier into a completely spiritual reality.
[edit] Nine Insights
- The First Insight... A Critical Mass
A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture; an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious coincidences.
- The Second Insight... The Longer Now
This awakening represents the creation of a new, more complete worldview, which replaces a five-hundred-year-old preoccupation with secular survival and comfort. While this technological preoccupation was an important step, our awakening to life's coincidences is opening us up to the real purpose of human life on this planet, and the real nature of our universe.
- The Third Insight... A Matter of Energy
We now experience that we live not in a material universe, but in a universe of dynamic energy. Everything extant is a field of sacred energy that we can sense and intuit. Moreover, we humans can project our energy by focusing our attention in the desired direction, in that where attention goes, energy flows, influencing other energy systems and increasing the pace of coincidences in our lives. It is possible to see this energy enveloping all living things.
- The Fourth Insight... The Struggle For Power
To gain energy, we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people.
- The Fifth Insight... The Message of the Mystics
Insecurity and violence ends when we experience an inner connection with divine energy within, a connection described by mystics of all traditions. A sense of lightness or buoyancy along with the constant sensation of love are measures of this connection. If these measures are present, the connection is real. If not, it is only pretended.
- The Sixth Insight... Clearing the Past
The more we stay connected, the more we are acutely aware of those times when we lose connection, usually when we are under stress. In these times, we can see our own particular way of stealing energy from others. Once our manipulations are brought to personal awareness, our connection becomes more constant and we can discover our own evolutionary path in life, and our spiritual mission, which is the personal way we can contribute to the world.
Here the four main "control dramas"—the Interrogator, the Intimidator, the Aloof and the Poor Me—are discussed. Each person unconsciously prefers one of these four to suck energy out of others (as described in the Fourth Insight). A way of getting these under control is disclosed.
- The Seventh Insight... Engaging the Flow
Knowing our personal mission further enhances the flow of mysterious coincidences as we are guided toward our destinies. First we have a question; then dreams, daydreams, and intuitions lead us towards the answers, which usually are synchronistically provided by the wisdom of another human being.
- The Eighth Insight... The Interpersonal Ethic
We can increase the frequency of guiding coincidences by uplifting every person that comes into our lives. Care must be taken not to lose our inner connection when we have become part of romantic relationships. Uplifting others is especially effective in groups wherein each member can feel energy of all the others. With children it is extremely important for their early security and growth. By seeing the beauty in every face, we lift others into their wisest self, and increase the chances of hearing a synchronistic message.
- The Ninth Insight... The Emerging Culture
As we all evolve toward the best completion of our spiritual missions, the technological means of survival will be fully automated as humans focus instead on synchronistic growth. Such growth will move humans into higher energy states, ultimately transforming our bodies into spiritual form and uniting this dimension of existence with the after-life dimension, ending the cycle of birth and death.
Redfield acknowledged that the work of Dr. Eric Berne and his book Games People Play, the bestseller from 1964, was a major influence on his work. Specifically, the life games to which Dr. Eric Berne refers in his book are tools used in an individual's quest for energetic independence. The Celestine Prophecy was originally self-published by Redfield, who sold 100,000 copies out of the trunk of his Honda before Warner Books agreed to publish it.[1]
[edit] Criticism
Although the book was generally well received by readers and spent 165 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list,[2] it has not been without criticism. Most of the book’s criticism has come in the form of the literary community pointing out that the plot of the story is not well developed and serves only as a delivery tool for the author's ideas about spirituality[3]. James Redfield has admitted that, even though he considers the book to be a novel, his intention was to write a story in the shape of a parable[4], a story meant to illustrate a point or teach a lesson.
Critics point to Redfield's heavy usage of subjective validation and reification in dealing with coincidences to advance the plot thus spending more time concentrating on the explanation of spiritual ideas rather than furthering character development or developing the plot in a more traditional manner. For example, the main character, in search of understanding the nine insights, will randomly meet people who know only one insight. However, he will only meet the person that knows a particular insight immediately after he has learned the previous insight, i.e. after he learns the 4th insight, the next person he meets that knows about the manuscript will be a person who knows only the 5th insight.
As well, improperly explained and, in some cases, completely unexplained “facts” are pointed out as adding to the flaws of the story[5]. Examples of this would include the author’s suggestion of presence of a Mayan society in modern day Peru rather than Central America as well as the suggestion that the manuscript was written in 600 BCE in the jungles of Peru yet the language in which it was written is Aramaic. Another point of criticism has been directed at the book’s attempt to explain important questions about life and human existence in an overly simplified fashion[6][7]. The criticism for this has come from both the Catholic Church as well as skeptics of spirituality, both sides arguing that the explanations to life’s complex questions cannot be summed up in nine relatively simple insights.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- The Celestine Prophecy (1995) ISBN 0-446-67100-2
[edit] External links
- www.celestinevision.com
- Control dramas - An explanation of control dramas mentioned in the book.
- Official website of Dr. Eric Berne
- Information on Dr. Eric Berne's bestseller Games People Play, which influenced Redfield's work.
- The Celestine Prophecy entry of the Skeptic's Dictionary
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||
