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Review rated by 42 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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Have you ever had an experience where some-ones name pops into your head and the next thing they are on the phone to you or you bump into them in the street. Have you ever been presented with a set of circumstances, which you have dismissed as a coincidence but that left you with a bit of nagging doubt…
If you have then you may be interested in “The Celestine Prophecy”, a book which claims to show that what we dismiss as coincidence is actually the very deliberate catalyst of a process that will allow us to take control of, and develop, our lives, as long as we allow ourselves to become receptive to this process.
Eh?
Ok let me elucidate.
THE BOOK
“The Celestine Prophecy” is essentially a spiritual self-help book, uniquely delivered in the form of a first –person novel. The hero of the novel is unnamed but is clearly meant to be you, the reader. The experiences, revelations, insights and questions of the narrator are actually ours, all of this is designed to engage the participation of you, the reader, to take you from empathy to sympathy.
The story begins with the first of many “chance” encounters when our narrator hears from a long-lost friend. As they meet for dinner for the first time in 6 years, the friend tells us of news coming from Peru about the discovery of an ancient manuscript which contains 9 Insights, each Insight containing information which once understood and embraced will further the process of Human evolution ultimately leading to the creation of a purely spiritual culture here on Earth.
Our friend reveals that the process will begin once we accept the First Insight, the recognition that there is no such thing as coincidence, everything happens for a reason, every chance meeting has a purpose. Once we grasp this concept then we can begin to attempt to recognise the reason for these “coincidences”.
Intrigued,
our hero founds himself strangely compelled to travel to Peru, where he finds himself wrapped up in a major conspiracy as he races against time to uncover the remaining Insights.
THE NOVEL
Clearly the purpose of the book is to deliver James Redfield’s spiritual self-help message, and you have to applaud the decision to make the whole experience more interesting by wrapping it up in a novel. However Mr Redfield is no great author, he is unable to breathe life into any of his characters, they all seem to be hewn from the same bland stone so as a result you get no sense of who these people are as individuals. He would have been as well doing away with names and just calling them character “A”, character “B” as so on. Of course though the only purpose of the other characters in the book is to enhance our understanding of the Insights and reveal further Insights, and they serve this purpose very well. In a straightforward self-help book, if you don’t understand the concept behind a particular idea you can’t question the author. However here we can. Usually once an Insight has been discussed by a character, the narrator (that’s you who is reading the book) usually fails to grasp the concept and so asks questions until the Insight has been extensively discussed and analysed until even a 5 year old could understand.
He is also incapable of creating any sense of drama or danger in our predicament. We do find ourselves in some dangerous situations but the writing maintains it’s one-note monotone, as if reading from the telephone directory, and so utterly fails to create dynamic tension. The story also relies far too heavily on the use of coincidences. Although some use of this device is necessary to illustrate the effect of the revelations contained within the First Insight, it happens time and time again until I got to the point of thinking that the only purpose of the First Insight was to justify Mr Redfield’s use of coincidence to drive his plot! Coincidence is a very lazy dramatic device in film and literature, as you don’t have to bother constructing a credible scenario to get your hero through your story if you can just have him turn the next corner and bump into the very person who can help him.
However all of this, whilst not lending itself to a very enjoyable read, does make for a very easy read and I found that I stormed through the 280-odd pages in a couple of days
But of course you are not reading this book for the quality of it’s writing, you are after…
THE SPIRITUAL SELF-HELP BOOK
I must confess right out that I can tend to be a bit of a sceptic on all matters spiritual but I approached the concepts contained within the Nine Insights with as open a mind as I could muster and found myself initially agreeing within them as they make perfect sense to anybody with a sound mind. Broadly speaking the Insights ask us to become aware of ourselves, what is happening to us and around us. Once we do this we will see that Humankind has gone from centuries ago having a mainly purely spiritual society to one that is almost purely secular. Once we recognise this and accept it, the time for transformation will come. This will occur by recognising that everything, every place is a source of energy. How we go about acquiring and using that energy is they key to the final phase.
This energy is the preoccupation of most of the Insights and although it is wrapped up in a veneer of New Age speak the messages are all perfectly valid and common sense. We are asked to take this energy in initially in the form of specially grown fruit and vegetables, clearly a call for the extensive use of organic farming materials. And although the book doesn’t specifically call for us all to become vegetarian it does say that this energy cannot be gained by consuming flesh. Once tapped in we also gain this energy from certain power sites, which will tend to be ancient wooded areas and places of outstanding natural beauty, basically a call to preserve the environment. The next stage of the energy is how we steal it from others. We should learn to recognise how we do this and reverse the process by giving energy to others. Be nice to one another.
These Insights, presented in any way you like, are something we can all relate too whether you have faith or spirituality or not. They are about how we relate to the physical world and those around us. The remaining Insights however deal with purely Spiritual matters although there was a clumsy attempt to created a concept of a form of Spiritual Capitalism, which left a bit of a nasty taste. I’m not sure how literally I was supposed to take them but certainly at this point me and Mr Redfield parted company.
CONCLUSION
Overall I was disappointed. I had been expecting an exciting adventure novel with some intriguing ideas. Well as I said, as a novel it fails to convince. As a spiritual self-help guide, well I guess that’ll depend on who reads it and how they responded to these matters. I could totally relate to the theme of the central Insights, not in the spiritual tones that Mr Redfield employs but purely on the common-sense level that is their heart. As for the accepting of coincidence and the more spiritual concepts I can’t say I’m that convinced.
Except…
A funny thing happened. I’ve had the book for ages having borrowed it from my mother after reading a review of it here on dooyoo. Not only did the op intrigue me but also I recalled my mother having asked some time ago if I had heard of the book after a friend had recommended it to her. Anyways I was clearing up my home PC workstation in anticipation of a visit from an engineer to have a look at my defunct PC and came across two things:
1 – A brochure from a Holiday Bond company, which went in the bucket but caused me to think about a “free” holiday I had been promised over a year ago after attending a timeshare presentation
2 - This book, which I immediately began to read (anything to get out of housework).
The next morning I got up about 10am and after pottering around for a while I decided to read more of the book. I had just put my hand on it when at the exact same time the post came through the door and guess what was in it. Yup, a letter inviting me to phone to chose my free holiday.
Coincidence or what?
That same week, on the Wednesday I was down at my mothers checking my e-mails when I suddenly felt prompted to go through to the living room and ask her if she had heard anything about a travel insurance claim she had submitted. You see my mother, who has a long history of tragic events occurring around the time she travels, was in a plane just off the Eastern Canadian coast when the events of September 11th occurred. She found herself stuck in Montreal for three days before she could get a flight out, in which time she had spent over £200 on hotel fees. Anyways at that point she had heard nothing but the very next day through the post…Yup you’ve guessed.
Coincidence or what?
The cynic in me says yes it was all coincidence and that reading the book had heightened my alertness to coincidence, which I would normally barely acknowledge.
rets that are currently changing our world. Drawing on the ancient wisdom found in a Peruvian manuscript it tells you how to make connections between the events happeni...
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11.08.2003 00:33
I love this book - it changed my life - for real Sorry it wasn't quite so potent for you...but a well-rounded, honest op - respect
27.05.2003 15:21
An interesting review but I must point out that you're not "here on dooyoo"! Cut-and-paste error perhaps? x
31.12.2002 00:25
Just started reading it! Got it for Christmas. Niki. xx