Visions of Enlightenment: Mysterious Manuscripts, Macchu Picchu, and Machine Guns
For our second Thrift Store Find, Paige chose James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy. Served up in our local Goodwill’s New Age section, and with a name like The Celestine Prophecy, you can guess that this pick is going in a similar direction to our first Thrift Store Find. However, contrary to what Jennifer had originally thought, this is, in fact, a work of fiction. Perhaps this is better than a mystical self-help book? Perhaps not? We’ll get to that at the end of the post. Either way, Redfield is simply using a fictional story as a vehicle for plugging his nine step program to achieving enlightenment, although what kind of enlightenment he means is not necessarily the woo-woo mumbo jumbo you may be expecting.
Redfield grew up in the Birmingham, Alabama area, and attended school at Auburn University. While in school he studied several eastern schools of thought, such as Taoism, while earning a degree in sociology. He later got a Master’s degree in counseling, which kick-started a fifteen-year long career in counseling. Though working with abused adolescents was undoubtedly a fulfilling career for Redfield, he explains in his personal bio on his website (link below) that he felt increasingly drawn to write about, “interactive psychology, Eastern and Western philosophies, science, futurism, ecology, and history.” He actually published The Celestine Prophecy himself, through Satori Publishing in 1992. By 2005, the book had over twenty million copies sold and was available in thirty-four different languages, a kind of success that most self-publishers can only dream of. This was only the first of many subsequent successful books, wherein Redfield reveals further ‘steps’ in his program. The Celestine Prophecy is described by Redfield as being a parable,
Paige walks listeners through the nine steps as presented within the story about a man (who is never named, although they call him John in the movie adaptation – let’s call him ‘John’ from now on), who embarks on a wild Peruvian adventure after becoming dissatisfied with his life and learning of a mysterious manuscript discovered in Peru, one that points to a path to achieve enlightenment. While the Catholic Church is trying to suppress knowledge of this manuscript emerging, as it rather understandably represents a threat to their own spiritual teachings, some brave souls that ‘John’ meets serendipitously along the way are not going to let an ancient institution or a few gun fights stand in their way. Yes, I said gun fights, as there are a disproportionate number of gun fights in this story, likening it to a Jason Bourne or a James Bond movie. Did anyone else notice that those two have the same initials? Anyway, “John” is helped by various people who reveal subsequent insights necessary for spiritual awakening to him.
Redfield fluctuates between preaching an ascension gospel and providing advice that you would expect to find in a therapy session, undoubtedly stemming from his background in counseling. Things like releasing emotional or spiritual burdens, marketed in the story as forgetting your past, are common fare in the therapist’s office. Further, Redfield discusses how to recognize toxic people and behaviors at length, though not in so many words. Instead, this is billed as ‘transference,’ and ‘John’ learns there are four different types of behaviors that are designed to gain energy (or attention) from other people: the interrogator, the intimidator, aloof, and the ‘poor me’. This section was perhaps the most practically applicable portion of Redfield’s work as we all know people who match these behaviors, or perhaps even recognize these behaviors in ourselves from time to time. It is part of being an emotionally well-adjusted being to learn how to avoid these detrimental habits, and if necessary, cut out people in our life who embody them.
It seems that while the story itself, and definitely the movie by all accounts, comes across as kooky, some of the basic ideas within it are much more relevant to your daily life than you might expect. We are almost 100% certain that Redfield does not actually believe that we are going to turn into beams of light like some sort of apocalyptic Rapture – he says as much in his bio. Rather, The Celestine Prophecy can be taken as an exaggerated how-to guide to achieving greater mental clarity and peace. Perhaps Redfield felt that a fictional tale would be more palatable to the average reader than an esoteric nonfiction text. However, for us, placing his ideas in this context makes them more difficult to take seriously. Clearly though, his books’ incredible popularity indicates that they speak to a lot of people, including the former owner of Paige’s copy, who wrote extensively in the margins of certain chapters. While Paige is definitely not recommending The Celestine Prophecy to anyone any time soon, this doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t add value to your life.
We foresee these links being useful:
- Here’s the IMDB page on the movie adaptation of The Celestine Prophecy. Apparently it is available to watch if you have Amazon Prime! But with a rating of 23 from Metacritic, be warned…
- Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe (the whole current Stargate saga) is now available on Hulu and through Amazon Prime. If you have either of these subscription services and you haven’t checked out Stargate yet, what is your excuse really?
- There are literal tons of fun links to learn more about Stargate, but here are a few: Gate World is a complete guide to the Stargate universe and also has a page for the upcoming and mysterious Stargate Origins spin-off, the Stargate Wiki is – as you can imagine – the place to be for any scrap of Stargate info you might have a question about, and finally don’t miss the new Stargate Command YouTube channel where you can catch cast interviews, classic clips, original YouTube shows, and much more! Really, Jennifer could talk about Stargate all day, so if you want, you can hit us up on social media or comment below.
- Check out Celestine Vision to see other books Redfield has published, of which there are many, and upcoming Redfield events.
- Redfield also provides an in-depth bio on the above website, which is pretty revealing.
Tune in next Monday for Episode 1.4. Follow us on social media if that is your thing, and be sure to check out our Patreon for extra BBE content!