Book Review of "The Celestine Prophecy"
by James Redfield
News of The Celestine
Prophecy came to me in such an esoteric, surreal way.
Some American girl told me about it in 1994, in Rouen , France , while walking to some community fair on a usual overcast day. The way she explained it made me want to pick it up without hesitation.
When I got back to Canada a
few months later, I forgot all about it. That is, until I saw it on a summer day in a bookstore on Yonge St. downtown Toronto . Traveling around in France and swashbuckling in downtown T.O. was an adventure, but a really fun and interesting one was about to begin.
It doesn't take you long before you realize that
"The Celestine Prophecy" is a very different book and that it is worth reading. It starts off by talking about the coincidences in our lives. Now keep in mind that this book is actually a work of fiction. James Redfield (the author) wrote and self-published this book as a fictional story of a man that goes down to Peru in search of a collection of ancient manuscripts that have been discovered. The protagonist finds that the Catholic church and the government are trying to cover up the discovery of these manuscripts, because they are a threat to conventional faith.
At any rate, as our hero continues through the story, he is "led" coincidentally to new people that have read the various scrolls and share their teachings with him. There are 9 such scrolls, each with eye-opening and soul-expanding results. The first scroll actually relates how the coincidences in our lives are not coincidences at all, but are really just manifestations of divine intervention coming to us at the right moments when we need them to appear. Cool concept, huh?
With that in mind, the main
character bumps into the right people at the right time, and so we progress through the story and learn each new "insight". Now, I'll share some of them with you in a moment, but let me first explain that I enjoy learning new things and hearing new ideas and ways of looking at things. I have my own beliefs and convictions, and I don't think I'm easily swayed from them, but I am very open to other schools of thought. With that in mind, please know I'm not saying I take any of these insights to be "the ultimate truth" or whatnot.
Have you ever heard the term "wisdom buzz"? Well, it means what you think it means. And when I read The Celestine Prophecy, I got a wisdom buzz up the wazoo. Every few pages I had to put it down and think, think, think. I would talk about it all the time with friends. Very often people would comment that they'd heard of this book and were thinking of reading it and what a "coincidence" that I was talking about it!
One time I lent it to a friend of mine that I used to talk to about all kinds of interesting subjects; I thought she'd really like it. Well, she hated it. She said she already knew all the things in the book because she'd read them before in a big collection of other books. She said it was basic and boring. Boy, way to make me feel dumb.
A few insights in the book talk about the flow of energy between people. They explain that we are always circulating energy in our lives, be it between people or divinity, but wherever we get it from, it makes us feel good. If we don't get our energy from God and nature (particularly from big old forests, as the book says), we will "steal" it from other people. We steal energy from others using our favorite interpersonal methods, like interrogating people, arguing, acting aloof so that others will come and interrogate us, etc. So, when we wrap people up in our own dramas, we steal that person's energy.
Now think of that for a moment. How do YOU steal energy? Do you find yourself insulting people? Do you talk their ears off like a motor-mouth? Can no one live up to your expectations? Yup, you steal energy because you don't get enough of it from divinity. In short, anything you do to get attention from others means you're looking for energy.
The rest of the insights are basically connected, but at higher levels. For instance, number 6 is "Clearing the Past", which involves paying attention to what makes us lose "connection", which shows us our ways of stealing energy. Once we clear these away, we enhance the flow of coincidences that guide us to our "destinies", by way of dreams, day dreams, and intuition (Insight #7), which often lead us to another person who has an answer for us.
All in all, the book is a good read, except for some wording the author uses to push the teaching dialogue along. It's sometimes a bit unnatural and it doesn't take long to notice that real people don't talk that way.
However, the ideas being shared are fascinating and help the story flow quickly. You'll often think about your own "destinies", you'll begin to notice the coincidences in your life, and you'll watch for the people that have been placed there to give you an answer.
Read it, and start watching.
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