The Celestine Prophecy
The
Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure
is a 1993 novel by James Redfield
that discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas rooted in multiple ancient Eastern traditions and New Age spirituality. The main character undertakes a journey to find and
understand a series of nine spiritual insights in 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.
Summary
The
book discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas that are rooted in
many ancient Eastern traditions, such as how opening to new possibilities can
help an individual establish a connection with the Divine. The main character undertakes a journey to find and
understand a series of nine spiritual insights in 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 belief that coincidences have a meaning
personal to those who experience them.[citation needed]
The
story opens with the male narrator becoming reacquainted with an old female
friend, who tells him about the insights 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.
The
historian explains how the world is currently undergoing an enormous shift in
consciousness, elaborating on how things had been generally understood (until
now) to be: 1) In the beginning, people believed the world to be governed by
the forces of divinity; everything could be explained as an act of a god or
gods, 2) With increasing knowledge of the world, brought about by scientific
inquiry, people turned to the men and women of science for an explanation of
life and their world, and 3) Since the problem of how to find meaning in the
world could not be solved by science, people chose to instead focus on efforts
to improve their lives materially, subduing and plundering the earth for its
natural resources, with a hyper-emphasis on controlling economic conditions and
market fluctuations. What was now occurring, explained the historian, was that
the baseness of our current conditions had begun to infect our souls as well.
We had become restless and desperate, primed for another fundamental shift in
consciousness so as to bring about the creation of a new, better world.
He
also discovers that powerful figures within the Peruvian government and the
Catholic Church are opposed to the dissemination of the material found in the
manuscript. This is dramatically illustrated when the police try to arrest and
then shoot the historian after his arrival. Threats to his life forced the
narrator to live nomadically, moving from town to town in search of
kind-hearted people who would offer lodging in exchange for more information
about the manuscript and its message.
While
evading the Church and Peruvian government, the narrator finds time to read
from the prized manuscript that offers 'Insights' as a sequence of passages.
During pursuit, the narrator experiences real-world lessons that prepare him
for each Insight in advance. In the end, he returns to the United States after
learning the first nine Insights, and promises to reveal a 'Tenth Insight' to
his audience in a short time. 'Insights' as such, are never made explicit to
the reader, but are instead paraphrased through action; made into a sequence of
parables that drive the storyline. Sourcing transcription is made impossible by
the narrator, claiming, "it must be the way it is for sake of
brevity"; adding that even a partial translation of the Ninth 'Insight' is
a lengthy twenty pages, typewritten.
In
the novel, the ruins of a Mayan civilization
in Peru were where the manuscript was buried. After it was found, the Incas re-habituated the abandoned cities. At some point, the Maya
reached an "energy vibration level" threshold that allowed them to
cross over into a reality
of pure spirituality.
Influences
Redfield
has acknowledged the work of Dr.
Eric Berne, the developer of transactional analysis, and his 1964 bestseller Games People Play, as major influences on his work.[citation needed]
Publishing history, adaptations and sequels
Redfield
originally self-published
The Celestine Prophecy, selling 100,000 copies out of the trunk of his
car before Warner Books
agreed to publish it.[1]
Christopher Franke,
former member of Tangerine Dream,
adapted the book into a music album in 1996.[2]
As
of May 2005, the book had sold over 5 million copies worldwide,[3]
with translations into 34 languages.
Redfield
expanded the book's concept into a series, which he completed in three sequels:
- The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (1996)
- The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight (1999)
- The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision (2011)[4]
Reception and critique
The
book was generally well received by readers and spent 165 weeks on the New York Times
Best Seller list.[5] The Celestine Prophecy has also received some
criticism, mostly from the literary community, who point 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.[citation needed] James
Redfield has admitted that, even though he considers the book to be a novel,
his intention was to write a parable,[6] a story meant to illustrate a point or teach a lesson.
References
· · Prestashop 1.5. "Book
Editing Services - Llumina Press".
llumina.com. Archived from the original on 29 September 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
· · "The
Twelfth Insight - About".
thetwelfthinsight.com. Archived from the original on 12 September 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
- The Celestine Prophecy (1995) ISBN 0-446-67100-2
No comments:
Post a Comment