Home > Media > Books > James Redfield, Tom Stechschulte, Carol Adrienne, St. Leger Joynes - The Celestine Prophecy: A Concise Guide to the 9 Insights Featuring Original Essays and Lectures by the Author
James Redfield, Tom Stechschulte, Carol Adrienne, St. Leger Joynes - The Celestine Prophecy: A Concise Guide to the 9 Insights Featuring Original Essays and Lectures by the Author
icicleie's Full Review: James Redfield, Tom Stechschulte, Carol Adrienne, ...
‘The Celestine Prophecy’, a book written by James Redfield, presents itself not just as a work of fiction, but as a book of theories also – theories that attempt to pin down the dynamics of an invisible energy that surrounds, permeates and underlies human interaction and existence. The characters of this book, and the manuscript talked of in this text, do not exist – and yet, many have read this book and taken the insights of this imaginary manuscript as part of their life philosophy.
The Story…
John Woodson, the protagonist, has planned a rendezvous with Charlene, a lady he has not seen in six years. She claims to have some mysterious information for him – information concerning a recently discovered ancient manuscript dating back to the year 600 BC. When they later meet, Charlene further informs Woodson that this manuscript, discovered in Peru, is said to contain within it at least nine great insights concerning the spiritual development, the evolutionary future, and the ultimate goal of the human race. This manuscript also predicts a massive transformation in human society, commencing in the last decades of the 20th Century. According to this manuscript, the human race will sequentially move through the enclosed insights to reach a higher (or even the highest) vibrational and spiritual state of being. Conveniently, Charlene knows of the first insight, and tells Woodson that this insight manifests first as restlessness, and then the realization of the importance of, and the real reason behind, coincidence. Not long after his meeting with Charlene, Woodson is on a plane to Peru to uncover more information about the rest of the manuscript.
Upon arriving at Peru, Woodson is already beginning to appreciate the purposeful existence of coincidence, and a couple of these coincidences has led to his discovering the second insight. Unfortunately, Woodson soon finds out that his quest might not progress any further - the Peruvian government is attempting to suppress the widespread publication of this manuscript and is confiscating all copies, as they feel it threatens organized religion. In fact, the government has started a superbly passionate devil-hunt for all those distributing this neo-gospel. In classic thriller style, the protagonist has walked right into the snake pit!
The story progresses as a kind of a treasure hunt, a new treasure (insight) being found by Woodson in every chapter, as he not-so-deftly dodges and defies the Peruvian government in a stream of nauseating coincidence!
The Analysis
An introduction to this book defines the content as a ‘parable’ – that is, a fictional story with moral teachings. Classically, parables tend to be a little farfetched but do serve the purpose I have just mentioned – and this book is no different. From the get go, the novel is painfully unrealistic – the major reason being that Redfield wastes no time in incorporating the first insight (that of coincidence) into the plot. Characters and plot twists pop up as convenient – symbols and farce are the flavour of the day, and are used à tort et à travers. This particular parable pulls out all the stops to make its points. If this is not your style, then you are in for a rocky ride.
As already mentioned, the primary theme of this book is that of an undiscovered energy, an energy that influences or is the cause of certain human interactions, behaviours and personality traits. If you could not possibly entertain such a notion, then this book is not for you. For those of you who believe in such an energy, or are at least willing to entertain the notion, then this book does indeed offer some interesting theories as to how this energy could conduct itself.
Redfield begins to relay his major theories of energy in the third insight, and continues throughout the rest of the book. Some are original and reasonably interesting – some are quite the opposite. Take the third insight, for instance – the notion that an energetic force imbues and surrounds all living forms, and that it can be visualized and interpreted. Strangely, Redfield never once in his lengthy discourse mentions the word ‘aura’. Either this word was invented post-the1994publication, or Redfield wanted the idea to seem like his own. At this point in the parable, the storyline had descended to the ridiculous. The protagonist didn’t seem to have any mind or logic of his own, and was instead riding the wave of serendipity. In short, there was a scarcity of intelligence in plot construction, and I wasn’t finding the insights were compensating well at all.
The book improved ever so slightly here, though. This is the point Redfield at which begins to theorize about the exchange of energy between humans and other humans, and humans and nature – all in the context of the fictional parable. My tolerance for outlandish twists also seemed to improve over the next fifty pages and couple of insights!
Redfield’s thoughts on the exchange of energy are quite readable. Naturally, all are unsubstantiated theories, as the existence of such an energy is also unsubstantiated by conventional science - but I have to say that his theories could match up with many day-to-day human interactions. The following presented ‘insights’ basically serve as Redfield’s voice on the issue. One particulars insight talks of conflict, and explains how all human conflict is a power struggle for energy – energy being ‘won’ when one has the upper hand. This insight says that such power struggles are only necessary because many humans are not in touch with the natural force (God?), and therefore must muster energy in other ways.
Another insight serves to propose how humans act to win such energy from others. In short, this insight says that all humans have a ‘control drama’, an act that each of us formulated in childhood to win back some of the energy being sapped from us by parental demands, corrections, and imperfections. The four control dramas are explained to be ‘The Intimidator’, ‘The Interrogator’, ‘Aloof’, and ‘Poor Me’. Redfield writes of the interactions between such control dramas in a convincing manner - although such interactions could simply be considered basic psychology, rather than anything to do with an unseen energy. Take the interrogator, for example, a person that likes to control (and hence sap energy from others) by pointing out their faults. This can be counteracted by an ‘Aloof’ personality which ignores and condescends to such an attack – and so, energy is regained. Power struggle number one. As a second example, take the intimidator, a person that resorts to threats on a person’s physical safety. This is only poorly counteracted by an aloof personality, so a ‘Poor Me’ personality evolves – a person that brings out the violins and makes the intimidator feel guilty, thereby retrieving energy. An intimidator could also be counteracted by an intimidator, but this could be quite a violent stand-off (drunken brawls spring to mind). Redfield says that intimidators inevitably produce poor-me or intimidator children, while an interrogator parent often produces aloof children. He mentions other combinations of control dramas as well, but I don’t have the space to go through them all. Ultimately, he claims that energetic power struggles like these lower our spiritual and 'vibrational' state of being.
The fictional story winds onwards as each of the nine insights are revealed in turn. As I got used to the incorporation of the insights into the storyline, my ability to tolerate the book did increase a little – with some of the insights, the fictional work in parallel was useful in clarifying some of the author’s points. Overall, this book was an okay read, simply due to the four or five insights that made me think (a little). The fictional personalities of the characters all fall in line with the insights, however, and we only get to see traits relevant to the current insight at hand. This means that the characters lack complexity and the storyline wanders many times to the predictable (even if the persisting use of coincidence allows for some surprises!) Don't hold you breath for the final couple of insights either - they are wishful thinking taken to the extreme, and not credible in the least.
I do not believe Redfield’s writing would hold up to scrutiny if he wrote a ‘normal’ work of fiction. From time to time, his imagery is well orchestrated - but for the most part, his writing is quite basic, and lacks much literary flair. The book is readable, but phrases are often mindlessly repeated – Redfield seems to have no other way to describe anxiety than with the phrase ‘a knot in my stomach’. Granted, a spiritualist such as himself would naturally draw links between anxiety and the solar plexus, but a good author generally takes the innovative approach to description.
Crazily, perhaps, I will be lending this book out to a few friends and urging them to read a few of the passages on the theories of energetic exchange underlying human interaction. Do not blame me if you find this book to be 50% codswallop, however!
Quick Note - ‘The Celestine Prophecy’ is due to be released as a movie in 2005/2006. It is currently in the post-production phase.
You have never read a book like this before - a book that comes along once in a lifetime to change lives forever. In the rain forests of Peru, an anci...More at HotBookSale
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