This book encourages a spiritual-but-not-religious awakening. The flimsy, implausible storyline and the not-so-well-crafted dialogue is only a device to present the pillars of this New Age philosophy. There is no plot and no tension. It is apparent from the beginning that the Nine Insights will be revealed, one by one, in order, at a predictable pace, and will not be rigorously defined or defended. In one sense, they cannot be defined, because they represent non-propositional knowledge—-that is, things you have to discover, learn, and experience yourself, rather than things you can learn from a book. At least the author is on target in his recommendation that vegetables are better when you grow them yourself.The Insights, paraphrased:First Insight: Figure out what you are searching for. Notice coincidences.Second Insight: Connect energy so coincidences happen more often. Think about time from the perspective of a millennium.Third Insight: Be aware of beauty, eat home-grown vegetables, and see auras around all living things.Fourth Insight: Understand that humans compete for energy in “control dramas” we learn from our parents.Fifth Insight: Have a sensual “mystical awareness.” Appreciate beauty to receive energy, and feel love to give energy. Controlling others disconnects you from your own source of energy. This insight will end human conflict.Sixth Insight: Examine your family “control dramas” on a spectrum that ranks individuals from aggressive to passive. See that there is an ambiguity in who is right and wrong. Transcend your drama and become aware of your own spiritual mission.Seventh Insight: Love causes high energy, stress causes low energy. Push away frequent feelings of fear—but, after they are mostly gone, when you occasionally feel negativity, take it seriously. Eighth Insight: Treat others well insofar as we help each other evolve. Talk to the right people to get the answers you want. Avoid being “addicted” to other people, especially to their opposite-sex energy. You can receive opposite-sex energy naturally and directly from the universe. Addiction to getting energy from other people will stop your growth. Tell children the truth, and don’t create control dramas for them. Ninth Insight: We will choose to have less people and more old-growth forests, so everyone can live in a forest. We will do less labor and more philosophy. Evolved groups will become invisible to lesser-evolved groups and these invisible people will walk into heaven.
a mea culpa for me and Ruby!once upon a time, a long time ago, i was an Entertainment Insurance Underwriter for AIG (well, a junior underwriter). i got to read a lot of scripts, i dealt with a lot of famous people, i got paid a lot of money. it was a time of much partying, much coke, an expense account, 1.5 assistants, and daily hangovers. one day i learned that i had written a movie policy that was so successful, so full of clever exclusions to coverage that it managed to cut off an entire family from any AIG benefits after a fatal helicopter crash. i found this out because the current CEO was visiting the san francisco office and decided to stop by and see this promising young underwriter to tell him "the good news". that was the day i realized that i was an evil person. i looked inside and didn't see a whole lot there. soon after, i quit my job and became a counselor for homeless kids, and so my life changed.during this time period, i had an associate named Ruby. we had a complicated relationship, based around sex, drugs, and a long trip to Turkey. Ruby was a Crisis Management Underwriter... she wrote policies for folks working in danger zones. her policies included kidnap insurance, explosion insurance (car & building & home), insurance that included services from high-tech spy & security group Kroll and information brokers/ hostage negotiators Pinkerton, insurance that allowed you to insure various limbs and appendages so that you could get a financial return if you were kidnapped and some torture-amputation occurred. her promo materials included an empty swing with a teddy bear (kidnap insurance), the world on fire (global coverage), and some cute lil' gray styrofoam bombs. no joke. later, she quit her job and moved on to buying and selling condominiums.we were two heartless people. Ruby's favorite book in the whole wide world was The Celestine Prophecy. it formed her view on life and how to live it... "it taught her so much". she read it multiple times, and loaned it to me. i loved it. "it spoke to me"... it gave me a perspective on the world that had me nodding my empty little head repeatedly in agreement while reading it.good grief! this must have been a monstrous book indeed if it gave such toxic, horrible individuals a kind of bizarrely personalized spirituality and a host of new agey life lessons to cling to desperately. sometimes you can judge the value of a book by the readers who love that book.http://www.kroll.com/http://www.pgs-usa.com/
What do You think about The Celestine Prophecy (1997)?
Really, cause I personally found it fascinating in the sense that it was good for all readers at every level! It's a shame you didn't finish it regardless of the way it is written, it has very good values to follow in every day life. Matter of fact it has changed my life for the better, I'm really disappointed you didn't enjoy it.
—Luthien
I also picked up this book at a thrift store and also purchased 'Left Behind' at the same time. How strange is that!? Celestine Prophecy is absolute drivel and I was only looking at reviews because I wanted to know if anyone else thought it was crap. Glad to know I'm not the only one.
—Shayna
WTF? This book is the worst kind of sci-fi/pseudo-spirituality. There are enough real awesome things in the world; we don't need this. This book presents itself as non-fiction, and although the author repeated stated after the fact that is purely invented, hoards of people began following the "teachings" in this book. It's nearly unreadable, but it will give you insight into what the masses are loooking for: a way to make your life better and change the world. Too bad it's fake. i guess I would reccomend My Ishmael to anyone who has the urge to read this.
—Reed
