The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
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Book Reviews of The Celestine Prophecy
Book Review: A brief followup
Summary: 5 Stars
I just wanted to make a few points clear about the nature of this book. It seems that James Redfield was perfectly prepared for the critics that have read this book. As a matter of fact I find it very very amusing that they blow off the book in the same IDENTICAL manner the church leaders in the story do. Its incredible how misinterpreted most spiritual study is and its amazing how people are upset that this book wasn't written like Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe. It wasn't designed to be a great piece of literature. John Gray isn't the highest selling psychological author of all time because the man can write. Its because of his ability to relay truth in a method that people can understand. Its designed to make a CONSCIOUS point about this "critical mass" of people that is uniting little by little to soon provide the near future shift from the materialistic worldview to the synchronostic worldview. He is not saying, "Ohhh lookie here... I am the first person in the history of mankind to think that there is a divine energy out there that responds to our intentions" ! Does anybody out there really believe that he wrote this book proclaiming that he has discovered the insights in the book for the first time in recorded history? Do you really honestly believe that a man with so much intelligence can be that redundant? Does anybody know the difference between now and 50 years ago? Does anybody know the difference between now and 100 years ago? Does anybody know the difference between NOW and 500 YEARS AGO? A very important aspect of the novel makes very good use of knowing the differences and how and why they came about. Do you really think this book is strictly about karma like every other spiritual book? Have our critics contemplated as to why this book is an adventure and not simply a FACT book? Has anybody realised that the book is based on a true story on his life that was slightly embroidered into a fiction book simply because he could not get it published as a true story? WHAT is the point of this book? To preach about That there's a divine energy out there that responds to our thoughts? Do we know just how often thats been written about before? Has anybody thought about what HIS contribution to the spiritual world is? Its not simply a reiteration of Know Thyself and God created the heavens and the earth and it was good and seek ye the kingdom of heaven within" It talks about a very conscious change in people. How more and more people are tipping the scale on the "Materialistic worldview versus the Mind over matter worldview" Thats the context of the book. That chronology and context has not been written about yet. The how has been written about many times, this book talks about the why. Its talking about how the now was derived from the static mindsets of the past and even how the past was derived from the even more static mindsets of their past. Kind of like something dare I say makes sense? Its not simply a book on how to live your life, its a book about how to understand our evolution, starting from the beginning and why the beginning was like it was and how it was very useful in bringing us to this "Critical Mass" he talks about. The Critical Mass is the growth in human consciousness that is being achieved not just in the power of one person but from the contributions of many and more and more people as they read this book. Once you can connect with energy from the universe rather than stealing it from people, you would then no longer argue, fight with people and sustain human conflict which only exists because people do not open their minds to the energies of a sychronistic and responsive universe. It all makes perfect sense and its not expressed in dollars, pounds, shillings and pence or kronar or french or swiss francs or guilders or escudos or pasedas! Its expressed in synchronicity and evolution. If not, then I can't imagine as to why this book became a international best seller when the man didn't even tour it or promote it or go on TV or the radio or anything. Nobody knows who he is ! How does a man create an International best selling book if he doesn't tour or brag about the book or go on TV and on magazines like everybody else who has to? He didn't have to. Its because there is a "Critical Mass" that the book was past onto and read by millions of people. Doesn't it make perfect sense? Or does he have the gift of gab like everybody else who was forgotten? Until somebody can explain to me how a man can use their knuckles to punch through a stock of 8 blocks of ICE that would require three or four men with sledge hammers.... Then talk to me about there not being some energy out there that contributed to it possibly? Nick
Book Review: it helped me and maybe it'll help you too
Summary: 5 Stars
i just finished reading the celestine prophecy! the knowledge within the book completely fit in with my knowledge of love, nutrition, alternative/wholistic medicine, psychology, history, chi, new age of aquarius, quantum physics, magick, my own dreams, group dynamics, meditation, ecology, relationships, addictions, etc... i could relate very well to much that it revealed. the 9 insights are very simple truths, easy to grasp; although Redfield occasionaly makes oversimplified generalizations. reading the first few insights of the Celestine Prophecy repeated to me much of what i had already discovered and i was mainly excited to see someone else having put into words what i'd already been thinking. the later insights also incorporated much of what i already understood, but they definitely gave me a new way of looking at everything and they assembled lots of pieces that've recently been floating in my head into something very clear. it all seems so obvious now. i like the way the insights build upon eachother sequentially and they are told in parable form. i looked at the reviews on ... and most all of the negative reviews were critiqueing his writing style, but i think they were missing the points, or insights i should say. yes, the way in which he reveals them and tells the story may seem slightly corny, but it wasn't meant to be a great peace of literature; it was meant to help people find meaning and to evolve spiritually.my final word on The Celestine Prophecy is that it is a powerful vision that synthesized previous knowlegde to give me a more precise direction in my spiritual evolution. i'm sure that a year from now, i'll consider this book just another influential stepping stone on my path and not "the best book i've ever read" as i consider it now. nonetheless, if you are ready and open to these insights, then i think you can benefit greatly from them. below is someone else's review of the book that i found to be particualrly short and sweet.
The Celestine Prophecy is not the best novel ever written, in fact to some it may seem hookie. What was great about this book, and in my opinion any book, was that it helped me grasp many of the ideas that had been swimming around in my head but could not be put into a working formula. Its one of those books that makes you say "yeah, I knew that, but I couldn't find the words." As the story unfolds so do aspects of the reader's self. Each chapter, or insight, revealed something new about who I was and who I wanted to be.
Many of the ideas discussed in this book are nothing new. They are at the core of many eastern philosophies and are heavily influenced by mysticism. But who cares! Each interpretation of these ideas is in its own way unique. Its like listening to a radio station that plays a certain jeanra of music: each song has a common feel and yet each has its own personality.
All in all, it may not be a literary masterpiece but The Celestine Prophecy is a must read. It will move you in places that have been forgotten, ignored, or that have been suffocoated by the monotonies of western culture and idealogy.
So simple, you might miss it. I want to say that this book was incredible, but it IS credible. Unless you live in a cave somewhere, and you never interact with anyone, then you will find yourself saying, "Wow, this guy makes sense. Why didn't I notice that before?" I think the reasons that this book is either rated as absolute garbage or absolutely mind-blowing, is because it's so simple. It's often the simple, basic ideas that we overlook. This book changed my way of thinking. It addresses a great number of issues that affect all of us everyday. YES, it is fiction, but that doesn't mean that you can't apply it to your nonfiction life. From the way you see yourself, to the way you interact with people, to the way you deal with problems, this book offers basic, simple insights to our complicated, frustrating lives.
Don't let this chance for enlightenment pass you by.
Book Review: What Inspires People About the Celestine Prophecy?
Summary: 5 Stars
It has been about ten years now since the book first came out. What is most important is not the literary quality or even its life view. What is important is what strikes a cord in the human heart by Redfield's book which was sincerely written since he felt to self-publish it at first, indicating he was not seeing CP as a popularizing book but a sincere effort at a new view of what is important in life. What is imporant in life? This book is worth the read to see characters struggling with the key ideas upon which they live their lives. This may be the essence of the book. I believe Redfield has worked with disturbed children as I have. Acting as a compassionate therapist you do wonder what at essence is inside a person that makes their life so difficult to live. Redfield has taken this enquiry to the cultural level as well. He questions the values and attitudes by which people live. He offers to all readers dramatizations of the values he believes are most important for individuals and societies as a whole. One of Redfield's values is that of trusting in synchonicity as both a guiding principle in your life and a trust principle that you are indeed supported by the universe when you put yourself in tune with it, rather than following egocentric desire. Redfield did not originate the concept of synchonicity, but he did maybe more clearly than Jung indicate what could happen to you and your culture if you lived your life from the principle of synchonicity, or meaningful and purposeful connecting. I suggest that people who try and turn themselves and others off to the book by dwelling on possible "faults" may be in an ego defense of their own against opening to a greater guiding direction in their lives than the poor little defensive ego offers. I have had this problem myself of being a scared little ego unwilling to let go of control and really follow the guiding direction of a force for healing, connecting and meaning at work in life. I am glad I gave up this egocentricity. It has made all the difference. So I suggest that the CP is necessary reading for everybody to better understand new ways of seeing onself in life. Don't read to be critical but read to see what a book evokes in you, positive and negative so that you use a book to better mirror yourself to yourself. Don't argue with a book and its author. Dialogue with your inner self and what gets evoked there by reading an evocative book. Your reactions to a book are your own. What you live from reading a book can only be a plus in your life if you accept honestly what it evokes in you. Read Redfield and others to get to your own need for real values to live in life. This is the reading style that has worked for me. There is no perfect book as there is no perfect life. We do not read for perfection. We read for inspiration and greater reality in which to live our lives. Honor the prophets who bring new visions, new mirrors to us, by dealing with the issues they present. --Strephon Kaplan-WilliamsBook Review: What Do We Have Here?
Summary: 5 Stars
Author James Redfield subtitles his book: "An Adventure." Here we have a book that reads like a novel while it claims to contain ancient Peruvian wisdom which had been secret up until recently. This wisdom will tell one how to make connections between events happening now and let one see what is going to happen in the years to come. Is this just a novel? The front of the dust jacket describes this book as being about an ancient Manuscript found in Peru which contains 9 key Insights to life.
Redfield tells his story in the first person and never gives his narrator a name. So let's call him James to make things easy. James gets a call from Charlene to meet him at the nearby airport restaurant. Charlene tells James that she has spent some time in Peru where she came across a Manuscript dated about 600 BC. Charlene loses the Manuscript but a priest explains to her that the Manuscript predicts a massive transformation in human society at the end of the 20th century. The 1st Insight is a reconsideration of the mystery that surrounds our lives; the 1st Insight is discovering that some other process is operating.
James decides to fly to Peru. Enroute he overhears another man named Dobson talking about the Peruvian Manuscript. It turns out that Dobson is a historian who explains the 2nd Insight. History is not just an evolution of technology but of thought. This evolution of thought shows us where we came from and where we are going. This, says, Dobson, makes the Manuscript's prediction of a transformation in society not only plausible but inevitable.
After he arrives in Peru, James finds out that the Peruvian government is trying to find the manuscript and anyone looking for it. He is trailed from the airport, gets involved in an incident, and ends up in the company of a man named Wilson who very quickly asks James if James is seeking the Manuscript. How did Wilson know? Control of the energy means controlling coincidences. The next morning James goes with Wilson straight across the high Andes to an old Spanish style building with at least 50 rooms. There James meets Sarah who has a copy of the 3rd Insight of the Manuscript. The 3rd Insight transforms the usual perception of the universe by stating that there is energy which forms the basis of and radiates from all living things. In other words, there are auras.
The 4th Insight is that humans have been unconsciously competing for this energy as it flows between people. All human conflict at every level is the result of "feeling insecure and weak and having to steal someone else's energy to feel okay." The 5th Insight offers a solution to the problem described by the 4th. The Manuscript called it mystical consciousness. "The universe can provide all we need if we only open up to it."
There are four insights to go. What do we have here? An adventure novel? Ancient Peruvian theology? Certainly a most intriguing read.
Book Review: truth cleverly disguised as fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
I had missed the chance to read the Celestine Prophesy when I was about 14. I was curious to see what's topping the charts of the New York Times bestseller, and there it was. The blurb wasn't terrible flattering, and I thought I had a lot more interesting things to do.It's been six years of bittersweet memories that I wouldn't trade for the world. Along the way, I've been looking for answers to questions, learning and researching tai chi, talking with people determined to make a better living.
The second time I encountered the Celestine Prophesy was last week. I wasn't looking for the book. I've never heard anyone recommend it to me. I was at a bookstore browsing. I saw the book, and picked it up at as a prop since there's a lovely lass standing across the room. At least, the book was a prop until I really read the first few pages. Since then, I've been compelled to read this book, and a few of James Redfield's other books.
There's truth to what the less-than-"wow" reviews have said: the writing by itself wasn't all that great. The plot was well-greased and well-worn. The content of the book is not original.
But that's not what's compelling about the book. I knew what the author was trying to say, even if I wanted to smack the main character for not picking it up fast enough. Obfuscating and encoding the book into some college literature mishmash would not have the same impact as the book's clarity did. I wasn't just reading the book: I was reliving my life because I've encountered, first hand, what went on in the book. But this was the first time these ideas and concepts were put together like this. This was the first time that I could see myself as a whole person, and not just pieces everywhere. The Celestine Prophesy is catalytic -- it causes what's going to happen anyways at much faster pace. That's why, I think, the book is so compelling.
Some other reviewers have disparaged the lack of originality in the book. I have yet to meet people who dislike the book, and I would be interesting in meeting more of these people. From what I can tell of these people who loath the book, they didn't find the silver bullet in the book that would make their lives better, and they saw the book saw the book as a passive form of entertainment, or perhaps they just want spiritual awareness and the meaning of their lives handed to them. For those reasons alone, the book sucks. But then again, if you had grokked that you can take your spiritual life into your own hands, you wouldn't notice the material failings of the book.
I bid you all a fair journey. Please direct any personal flames to hsiao.39@osu.edu as I'd like to understand more of why some people hate the book.
---hhh