The Celestine Prophecy

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tells the story of a man who tries to learn and understand the nine key insights into life itself in an ancient manuscript that has been discovered in Peru. It predicts a massive spiritual transformation of society in the late twentieth century. We will finally grasp the secrets of the universe, the mysteries of existence, and the meaning of life. The real meaning and purpose of life will not be found in religion or in material wealth, but rather in things like auras. He comes across the insights in numerical order since that is how one must understand them. Overcoming an initial skepticism, the narrator's understanding grows with each insight. They include the following: 1. A Critical Mass. 2. The Longer Now. 3. A Matter of Energy. 4. The Struggle for Power. 5. The Message of the Mystics. 6. Clearing the Past. 7. Engaging the Flow. 8. The Interpersonal Ethic. 9. The Emerging Culture.

In the first 15 pages, while the plot is still forming, at least eight basic ideas are introduced: a spiritual awakening is occurring in the world (p.4); humanity is evolving into a higher spiritual consciousness (p.4); seek the experiential (p.5); coincidences have spiritual significance (synchronicity) (p.6); the knowledge contained in the manuscript's insights has been hidden from most of the world (esoteric, secret knowledge) (p.8); anti-Christian attitudes (p.9); discover truth through experience (p.10); and when the student is ready, the teacher appears (p.15). These ideas are not always expressed in so many words, but their principles are. For example, the basis of the story is that the spiritual insights humanity needs are hidden in an ancient document, and must be uncovered if mankind is to advance spiritually. Not everyone, according to the story, is ready for or able to comprehend these teachings. The insights are for those spiritually ripe, the spiritual elite. The book implies that in time others will accept these ideas but for now the more advanced must lead until a critical mass of people have grasped the insights.

The first two insights are that coincidences have a deep significance and that this decision-making should guide an individual. Later insights build on this, teaching the narrator that he should be guided by daydreams, intuitions and thoughts that may flash in his mind. So at the very beginning of the story, the subjective is valued over the objective. The truth is not outside ourselves but exists in us; we only have to learn to recognize and follow it. If indeed this is truth, then there are no absolutes. Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth. No one can judge another's inner experience of truth; therefore, there can be no right or wrong. Yet the book implies there are wrong ways of thinking when it is refers to the "traditional beliefs" that one must reject in order to understand the insights. Apparently, some truths are truer than others.

The next several insights are based on the belief that the universe is comprised of pure energy "that is malleable to human intention and expectation" (p.42). Later, the narrator states, "I perceived everything to be somehow part of me" and he realizes his real body is actually the universe (p.98). Connecting to this energy field is essential to spiritual development since this energy is life, love and God. The narrator is advised that love exists "when one is connected to the energy in the universe, which, of course, is the energy of God," (p.153). The narrator learns how to see energy fields around plants and people.

The story builds as the narrator encounters each insight that leads him into a state where he is able to understand the next insight. The culmination is a realization that spiritual evolvement is moving one's energy into a higher vibration. Matter is the densest form of energy and therefore less evolved. As one evolves and the energy vibrations accelerate, one becomes freer of the body and the material world. This concept is introduced as the narrator describes a vision he has of the history of the universe in terms of scientific evolution. Energy somehow coalesced into matter which then "leaped" past simple forms into more complex forms (p.99) The narrator realizes that each emerging species represented matter "moving into its next higher vibration" until finally "at the pinnacle stood humankind," (p.100). Humankind is at the pinnacle and yet it is nature that is holy. Man vibrates at a higher level but the universe is his body. If moving into a higher vibration is the goal, then should not we want the trees and rivers to progress to that point? Is nature capable of this, and if so, how would it be done? The book does not offer the reader any insight on this dilemma.

Since we are evolving into a higher vibrational state,