In The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield unleashed the story of an ancient Peruvian manuscript that held nine key insights into life itself. In terms of literary merit, it managed to make Carlos Castaneda seem like the intellectual genius of his age, when you compared the two writers. It duly hit cult status in the US "" followers can pick up The Celestine Prophecy: An Experiential Guide , subscribe to The Celestine Journal and even check out the web site.
But Redfield's original story of life, the universe and the cosmic connection between the two could have done with some finetuning. There wasn't a single Afro-American character around, most of the baddies were gun-toting Peruvians and the motivation of the bad guys was kind of ill-defined. And though the book said a lot of nice things about the importance of being vegetarian (meat-eaters don't get to see auras) it missed out on making the right noises about the environment.
Redfield gets it right the second time around. The story's set in an old-growth forest in the Appalachian Mountains (this man is a genius when it comes to choosing picturesque locales) where the villains are trying to conduct a mysterious experiment that will create major environmental damage.
The scope of the book is expanded to deal with reincarnation, but in a way that fits in with American culture. He dispenses with the need for the satisfying visions of hell Dante and Hieronymus Bosch came up with, replacing it with the concept of the Life Review, where you get to grade your life on an emotional report card after you've died.
One of the chief protagonists in the book is a black woman called Maya, so Redfield gets to display sensitivity to two minority groups at the same time; another is a Native American man called David Lone Eagle. Actually, Maya stands for three, not two minorities, because in her last incarnation she was a Native American medicine woman who came into conflict with David Lone Eagle, who in his last incarnation was a Native American warrior...
But Redfield's greatest achievement is to have realised that giving the
Insights out nine at a time is actually a waste of energy. Like its predecessor, The Tenth Insight ends with the promise of more "" but this time around, the insight information is likely to be released one at a go. There is a logical reason for that the first nine insights were written down to form the Manuscript. But the Tenth operates differently it has never been written down, it's not part of the original Manuscript. The narrator asks, reasonably enough, whether it exists at all in that case:
Oh yes, it exists. But not in the Earthly dimension. Only when enough people sense this information, intuitively, can it become real enough in everyone's consciousness for someone to write it down. Until then, various enlightened souls act as its keeper, and are nice enough to let inquiring minds know that they know what the insight is, even if they can't tell them just yet.
Souls and soul groups are only a small part of the population that's gathered in this old-growth forest. There are hikers who've landed up in search of the Tenth, presumably sacrificing their annual trip to Back to Woodstock to do so; there are members of the Forest Department, some of whom are counting the number of hikers going in and some of whom are conducting the sinister experiment mentioned above.
There are animals and birds, who pop up every time the narrator faces a dilemma, and make his path clearer. There is the narrator, who's hunting for Charlene, who led him to the first nine insights; there's Charlene, who's hunting for the Tenth Insight and the baddies; there's Curtis and Wil and Maya and David Lone Eagle and "" well, on the whole, the forest sounds more crowded than a Delhi disco floor on Ladies Night.
In his first book, the author had emphasised two points "" that the human race is going through a major raising of consciousness that is likely to coincide with the coming of the millennium, and that the road to self-knowledge was through freeing yourself from controlling, confused or misdirected behaviour. Redfield is attempting to take this to its logical corollary with the Tenth Insight "" not only do you need to examine your present life, but your past lives as well, because what you did in the eleventh century may be preventing you from achieving personal growth now.
He also hedges his bets like any good prophet should, in case by some unhappy chance, we do not reach enlightenment and the millennium at the same time. It's a fairly simple concept, actually "" the growth of human consciousness is also accompanied by a fear of change in the unenlightened, and that fear is increasing in direct proportion with the rise of consciousness. Therefore, being an enlightened person is not necessarily going to be prevent you from being mugged on the city streets by somebody whose consciousness hasn't been adequately raised.
Redfield's latest addition to the field of millennium literature is likely to do as much business as Linda Goodman's Sun Signs. Whether it's likely to do much for the reputation of the field is a lot more doubtful. Both The Celestine Prophecy and The Tenth Insight are miracles of packaging.
None of the many concepts on display in these books are remotely original "" they trace their origins back to the free love and Gestalt groups of the '60s and offer pop psychology solutions. But they also address the concerns of the Baby Boomer who's well into middle age now, and allow him to feel that he can change the world from his desk.
Now that he's taken on life and afterlife, what is Redfield going to come up with for the eleventh insight? Perhaps he could work out a few minor contradictions that come up in his first two books "" like the one that encourages you to make eye contact and strike up conversations with strangers because they could have a message for your life. Somehow, it's hard to see that going over well on the paranoid streets of New York.
