The title of a novel by James Redfield. The novel is seen as a spiritual guide for the New Age. One devotee describes it this way.
This book is very simply about how we get and use energy. When we get enough energy, in the right ways, we can "raise our vibration". With a higher vibration we are better able to tap into our psychic and intuitive skills, and thus are better able to discover and live our true purpose in life.
Even Redfield treats his novel as a spiritual guide. He's started a newsletter for his followers: The Celestine Journal: Exploring Spiritual Transformation. He has a followup book, The Tenth Insight. I don't know if he calls that one a novel or not. He also has audio tapes for sale.
It is not pleasant to criticize someone who emphasizes the power of positive thinking. But here goes anyway.
Redfield starts with the notion shared by many New Age gurus: the world is emerging into a new spiritual awareness. He puts it this way:
For half a century now, a new consciousness has been entering the human world, a new awareness that can only be called transcendent, spiritual. If you find yourself reading this book, then perhaps you already sense what is happening, already feel it inside.
What is the evidence for this New Age? Well, can't you just feel the vibrations? Can't you feel the energy? No? Well, that's because you are too negative. Put away your doubts and you'll start to feel it, too. Follow your intuitions, your premonitions. Flow with coincidences; they are purposive. Nothing happens for nothing. You are part of something really big! Can't you just feel it? You've got to feel it. A spiritual journey is a journey of feeling. This is no intellectual quest. The meaning of life is not cognitive. Feel the synchronicity. Tune in.
In the novel, the meaning of life is revealed in an ancient Peruvian manuscript. It predicts a massive spiritual transformation of society in the late twentienth century. We will finally grasp the secrets of the universe, the mysteries of existence, the meaning of life! The manuscipt is full of insights and these insights are the way to the transformation. How do we know this? Easy. Just look at the restlessness all around you. That's the key. The dissatisfaction and restlessness we feel is the key. We're like caterpillars ready to metamorphosize into butterflies, to burst forth together into the New Age. After all, you can't seek fulfillment if you're fulfilled! Haven't you noticed how coincidences are happening more and more frequently? Do you think that is just a coincidence? No. It's a sign that a New Age is dawning. These are signs that you're being called forth. Tune in. Feel the vibrations. Feel the energy.
...the Manuscript says the number of people who are conscious of such coincidences would begin to grow dramatically in the sixth decade of the twentieth century. He said that this growth would continue until sometime near the beginning of the following century, when we would reach a specific level of such individuals--a level I think of as a critical mass.
I'm not sure but I think he meant to say the seventh decade, not the sixth. The sixth decade of the twentieth century would be the 1950's. Nobody seems to think that the '50s were a time of restlessness. But, yah, I remember the sixties! The Beatles, LSD, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, assassinations....a very restless time....lots of coincidences in those days, too. Definitely a critical mass kind of time. Gave birth to the seventies. Wow! Remember the seventies? No? Neither do I.
What is really mysterious is that the Peruvian manuscript is written in Aramaic. Yah, but remember this is just a novel, right? Yep, and you'll have to read it to find out the real meaning of history and the rest of the insights that will bring in the New Age. I'll give you a hint, though. The real meaning and purpose of life won't be found in religion and it won't be found in material wealth. Another hint: look for auras. Make love, not war. Be neither intimidator, interrogator, aloof nor pitiable. We don't need fear, humiliation, guilt or shame. (Your family or church probably screwed you up in one of these areas, huh?) Transcend your childhood and all its traumas. Contemplate, meditate, follow your intuitions, your dreams, your synchronistic coincidences: they are guiding you through your spiritual evolution. Avoid negative people. You can tell good people by their eyes. Synchronize your energy with other good people. Your purpose is to evolve to a higher plane. This plane sucks. Become a point of light and get sucked into God's energy. Become God. You deserve it.
Fact or fiction, it doesn't matter. Truth is what you make it. Life's too short and too complicated to deal with reality. Make your own reality. Honor your dreams. Bless your self. Love is all you need. Practice random acts of kindness.
Similar messages can be found in the writings of Jean Houston and other New Age thinkers. Ridiculing the gurus or their followers of these New Age cults may seem methodologically incompetent to some skeptics. If our goal is to change their minds, then such a method would be as hopeless as the world seems to the New Agers. But, if our goal is to get the attention of those unhappy and dissatisifed people who might be attracted to New Age gurus and their messages of hope, then I am afraid we need to do more than careful textual analysis and empirical testing of ideas. If our goal is try to prevent people from turning to New Age gurus and therapists (or from traditional religion, occult beliefs and pseudoscience, for that matter) then empathy for the victims of frauds, hoaxes and non-sense won't accomplish much. In my view, we skeptics need to keep in view those who have not yet joined the Celestines, the Miracles, the alien abductionists, the Pleiadians, etc.
So, what makes it possible for a novel to become the basis for a spiritual movement? Before trying to answer that question, I think it is interesting, if not amusing, to point out that those who claim their words of wisdom have been channelled from some Cro-Magnon warrior, aliens from another star system, etc., are going to a lot of unneccesary trouble. On the surface, it might seem a better tactic to claim that your ideas are not just your ideas but the ideas of God or some great being of the past or great beings of the present in outer space. At least you don't have to prove or defend anything. Yours is not to question why, yours is just to deliver the message. Well, apparently even if you claim the message is fiction, if you present the right message, they will come. Who will come? Who is this "they" that are attracted to channelled or fictional spiritual guides?
They are the unhappy, the dissatisfied. They are the psychologically and emotionally dispossessed. They look to their lives and to the world at large and what they see mostly is hopelessness. The world is so full of evil, so full of hate and destruction, so lacking in kindness. Terrorists are everywhere. Political terrorists blowing up buildings full of people they have never met and who have done them no wrong. Eco-terrorists who for money and power are destroying the sky, the sea, the earth, the sweet water, the air we breath. Religious terrorists who in the name of Christ or Mohammed or God preach hatred of gays, of women, of each other. Familial terrorists who have abused their children, who did not love them, did not bring them into a good and safe world, and who did not protect them, educate them, prepare them for the evils of this world. They are unhappy and dissatisfied and feel powerless to do anything about it. If only they could escape from this world of hopelessness, they would. They did not find the bliss that they thought would be theirs when they got married or started playing house with their lovers. They did not find the bliss that they thought would be theirs when they achieved their goals of a good education and a good job. The churches of their childhood want them to remain as they are if they are female. But remaining as they are is painful and unsatisfying and unfair. They have had enough of powerlessness, of hopeless powerlessness. They want empowerment. They want a piece of the happiness pie. It's a dirty world. There must be something better. Old Time Religions have their doors wide open, but they are so unhip and so obviously part of the problem not the solution.
When someone comes along and preaches a message of hope, they listen. Hope is their dope. Now, there is nothing wrong with hope. A life without hope is not worth living. When you are shipwrecked in the middle of the deep dark sea and someone throws you a life preserver, you grab it and thank them. You do not interrogate them. And when your saviors pull you onto to their boat of happy, blissful crew members, your first instinct is to want to stay with them. You will listen to what they have to say and you will listen more carefully than you have to anything you've ever heard in your life. It will not be like those dreary philosophy classes you had to take in order to graduate. This is Real Life 101, an advanced course in the meaning of life.
Your main criterion for whether you are on the right boat or not will be how you feel. If you feel better than you can ever remember feeling, if you feel attuned to a new reality, a new sense of purpose, a new set of connections that are positive and benefitial, that validates the truth of the messages. There must be auras revealing energies because I can feel them. Their must be energies running through inanimate objects because I can feel them. We must be approaching "critical mass" because I can feel it now. I can feel myself emerging into the light. I feel better. I feel hopeful, satisfied, happy. What more proof could anyone ask for the truth of my beliefs?
Well, let's start with the possiblity that you are deluded. So what, you might say. My delusions are better than your scientific truths. My delusions make people happy. What you call the truth has led to nothing but hatred, destruction and evil. You are just protecting your interests. You call things true because that gives you power and you abuse your power. You criticize religion for all the evil that has been done in its name, but what about Science? Look at all the evil that has been done in the name of Science: nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, a depleted ozone layer, polluted air and water, a universe of pornographic images of women, abuse of children, millions of abortions, protection of deadbeat fathers, lawyers who know how to help people get away with murder, crooked judges and stupid juries, a drug addicted society full of criminals and brain dead morons, massive unemployment, insane terrorists in our cities. You name it, if it's evil it's due to Science and Technology.
Nonsense. But, even if it were true that Science is the root of all evil, it would not follow that some other set of ideas about a spiritual transformation of the world has any validity. Mystics do not make the world a better place. They look at the world and say this is not where I want to be, this is not where I can find bliss. I want bliss. Mystics are escapists: they seek refuge on a lifeboat which transcends the storms of the real world. They want what life can't give them, so they seek an imaginary world where they get what they seek. Who can blame them, really? I mean, how many of us have the strength or moral courage to reject the values of wealth, power, fame? How many of us have the strength today to find satisfaction in our jobs? How many can't even find a job to be dissatisfied with?! How many of us are in positive, fulfilling relationships with others, sexual or not? How many of us find satisfaction in our leisure pursuits? How many of us are depressed? How many of us reach middle age and look back at our lives and say, "yes, look at all the mountains I climbed, look at how I had great vision when I was young and how I fulfilled my visions, look at this masterpiece I have created, my own life!" Very few, I imagine. Instead, we're more likely to say with Dylan: "thirty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift." How many of us commit suicide each year? Many, and a great number of these are young people. How many of us are really happy? Plenty, I would say. But there are also billions of us, so it is inevitable that there are also millions of us who at any given moment on this planet are bound to be very unhappy. Thus, there will always be millions of us who are vulnerable to the snares set by false prophets.
Now, I am frequently asked what I have to offer that is better. What I have to offer that is better is independence. You will never be truly free as long as you depend on someone else for guidance. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having guides but they should be discarded at some point. Until you can walk alone, you are not free. This doesn't mean that you seek to be alone. That would be absurd. We're social creatures and our well-being depends upon satisfying relationships with other people. It means that you must think for yourself, not let others do your thinking for you. Again, this doesn't mean that you must teach yourself how to think. Others can guide us to think for ourselves. They teach us methods of inquiry rather than hand us books of predigested "truths." Finally, I must admit that much of what the New Age spiritualists advise is good advice. Love one another. Avoid negative, destructive people. Don't just hear other people, really listen to them. Take them seriously, even if they disagree with you. Think. Explore new ideas and new methods of getting ideas. Look to the past for guidance and wisdom. Be creative. Take a more pro-active role in your life; don't be passive. Think positively.
But there is another side to the New Age that is subjectivist and relativistic. There is a side which sets snares which encourage people to believe that reality is whatever you want it to be. The line between fact and fiction get blurry and obscured. Of course, fiction has its place in a satisfying life, but so should fact. The methods of science may not be perfect, but when it comes to getting the facts straight, they are better than any other methods we have come up with so far.
further reading
Why I Hate the Celestine Prophecy by Kenneth Moyle
The Celestine Network The Redfields own Home Page
CyberPark - The Celestine Prophecy
The Celestine Prophecy Home Page
The Celestine Prophecy - The Nine Insights