Celestine Prophecy

Word up.

Here's the website for anybody who wants a look.

http://www.celestinevision.com/

 

I agree. This was the book that started it all for me though so I have to give credit where it's due. I first read it when I was 22 so that was about 8 years ago and since then I have read many more deep, inspiring books including some by Carlos Castenada. I'm glad I read 'The Celestine Prophecy' first though.

 

has anyone ever read any of these books....by james redfield
i think they are truely amazing and inspiring books..

 

Yeah,I've read the insights,and the secret of shambala.Good shit!

 

EVERYONE should read these books.

 

What I like about Redfield is that he is smart enough to know his limitations.


Whereas most mediocre writers go on and on, Redfield, knowing his limitations as a writer, keeps it short and simple.

Refield realizes that 'The Manuscript' would be no real threat to any established institution, so he doesn't bore us with 500pages of conspiracies over nothing, but instead keeps the casper-milk-toast plot of a book short.

 

love it

ur absolutely right

 

anyone else

 

Not to hurt anyone's feelings, but I disagree with most takes on this book.

I love the feeling of "synchronicity" but see it as truly an illusion (much as I see all religion as superstition). The thrill, to me, is not lessened by the fact that it really did NOT happen for a predestined reason. For instance, I remember the morning I finally decided I was going to attend a national rainbow gathering for the first time- I posted a request for a ride on the rideboard, and stepped outside immediately afterwards- to see a lovely rainbow. Clearly there's NO intelligent design here- life can just really be THAT kewl. That, to me, beats any sort of mystical explanation.

My general resentment of religion makes it no less fun to drum around a campfire to Pagan chants or to hear someone's heartfelt views on life and their view of god/goddess/whatever.

This is coming out clumsily, but what I'm getting at is that I wouldn't mind a book on spiritual stuff if the setting was captivating as described, or if the characters were enthralling, or whatever.

It's just... that book is really badly written, IMHO. I'm not saying I could do better, but if I couldn't, I'd have taken my ideas to a writer who could do something really special with it, because that set of ideas was an AWESOME foundation to build upon. It could have been quite a nice book, particularly with the introduction of scientific skepticism, especially a Richard Dawkins sort of character. Characters that you become totally intrigued with, or settings that "make you feel like you're there." Something. Anything.

It's been years since I read it, but I still distinctly remember being shocked by the dullness of the writing style. That's my honest opinion!

An example of a book that I consider a perfect opposite? The French Lieutenants Woman by John Fowles. There's mystery, moral/ethical issues, the conflict between good/evil/inaction, the conflict between science and religion, and even the conflict between the emotions of the craftsman spinning the tale. A million other things as well, and set in a time/place that I would have expected to bore me to death. It's also the perfect example of existentialism.

If any of you have read both, and yet still feel strongly that Celestine is a good book, I'd love to hear a discourse on it! My guess is that if anyone takes it up from here, they will point out that the actual purposes of the two books differ greatly, and their target audiences also differ greatly.

 

You write well. You spell correctly, punctuate precisely and know that grammar isn't your mom's mom who bakes good cookies. It's a rare pleasure to encounter the likes of you on the Web.

However, I'm a Republican; does that mean I should be dead? (Sometimes that feels like a plausible option--but that is not relevant, is it?)

Fire away, sir: the only sentient beings that don't hate, fear or ignore me are my pussycats--and, they need me.

 

Short answer: I changed my sig while angry, then noticed that sigs had been disabled (spammers were abusing them probably) entirely on this site, so the sig did not appear anyways. I did not change it, then sigs were re-enabled, and the hateful message now appears. I have removed it.

(I got the saying from a Vietnam Vet who was one of those conservatives who supported Nixon and Ford and Reagan and DaddyB, participated in all veteran groups, flew the flag, marched in parades, past commander of every veteran group I've heard of except VVAW, which he didn't like... but then along came that idiot "Dubya"and the Iraq War, and now he's a democrat... but I think his saying was longer... "The only good republican is a dead republican, and then only once you've trampled down the dirt and pissed on the fuckin' traitor's grave." Or something very close to that.)

A more complete answer:

I have a good friend who is on the other side on politics. In fact, for about a year after 9/11, I was on the other side myself, and was a very adamant defender of George Bush. I didn't like his politics overall, but I felt that America had to unite and show a united front in dealing with national defense. I was equally sure that the president, recognizing the importance of this- and seeing an almost 100% approval rating- would stand above partisan politics, and would be especially careful to prevent human rights and civil rights abuses. But I defended him and defended most of the choices he made, to the point that I was eventually banned from this site because I wasn't contributing anything new, and the "broken record" got old.

What changed my mind? It was really the "shock and awe" attack- not the one on Iraq, but the shock and awe attack the Republicans launched against America.

My son became military-eligible just as the Iraq War was looking more and more likely, and he was getting phone calls from recruiters. When Colin Powell went before the UN to present "evidence" (which we now know- from his Chief of Staff and others- was false). But it was such an important issue that my son, a Senior in High School, went to the administrators and pointed out that if his generation was going to be sent to war, they should at least be allowed to leave class to watch a live broadcast in the building- which they did! Some of his classmates subsequently enlisted.

But it was lies, goddamn lies, and goddamn lies that killed a lot of good American kids.

It quickly turned into an assault on every value we as a family ever worked to build and defend. Lies about WMDs, then we switched sides, first helping Shia kill Sunni, then putting Saddam's secret police back in charge and helping them kill Shia, then we fired the Sunnis and sided with the Shia again.

There were lies on top of lies on top of lies. Hell, at one point the president actually said that we had to invade Iraq because Saddam had never allowed the weapons inspectors in!! This from the guy who had ordered them out! He seems to believe that saying something, of itself, makes that something true.

Then the attack on civil liberties- the Padilla case in particular, with people/groups like Michelle Malkin and the ACLJ arguing that concentration camps for suspected liberals was a good idea

Now it's gotten so out of hand that Bush operatives were telling NASA that scientists were wrong to not talk about God as part of science- it's gotten totally completely out of hand, and there's little we can do now to avoid World War III and perhaps more than a hundred million dead.

We know Hitler only killed what, fifty to seventy million? We don't yet know the price in blood that humanity will pay because of Bush, but it's looking extremely dire.

If you're a republican, you're mistaken. You've made a mistake that's ripping this country's heart out. You're making a mistake that's killed tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq and thousands of really good Americans- largely family men in the reserves. And you've made a mistake that goddamn near killed my only son, and yeah, I'm very VERY bitter about it.

No, I don't want Republicans dead. If it would save America, sure, I might really think that way. But it's too late- this country is already screwed beyond any possible hope for redemption, America as a nation has been murdered by your... well, "cult" is about the nicest term I can make myself use for it.

I'm not the only person with relatively old-fashioned views that is truly enraged at what has been done to us. Oh sure, the Tursts hit us, but that was trivial compared to Bush's crimes against our country.

 

Clumsy?

Who're you kidding? That was perfectly said!

It sure summed up my mixed feelings about "The Celestine Prophesies" better than I ever could.

Many New-Agers desperately need to squeeze every drop of meaning out of 'a moment', only to end up squeezing the spontaneous life out of that once perfect moment.

Some things just don't need to be explained, only experienced.

Thanks, I'll put "The French Lieutenant's Woman" on my list.

And don't be hard on Republicans, because they simply reflect more accurately the many pathos of our Gothic Puritan Culture.

They're the life saving canaries-in-the-mineshaft; a causionary tale for the wary.

 

Thanks for the kind reply. I decided to stop running my mouth about politics, and made a donation to someone whose voice is a thousand times more effective and helpful to the national/human good.

THANKS for that really insightful analogy re repubs. That is a much more bearable way to see it...

The French Lie...howeverit'sspelled Woman... it's one of the few pieces of genuine literature that I found readable and enjoyable. I remembered that it was a movie also, and I wondered how it could POSSIBLY be done... it couldn't. But what they did with it was superbly clever, and really underscores the existentialism aspect of it. Worth seeing, in my opinion.

But the book is a masterpiece, one of the few that I rave about loudly and often.

 

That book was such an eye opener for me at a young age.... I just randomly found it one day at a book sale for like 3 bucks and bought it! Now I own books 2 and 3 but the first one is diffenitly the best!!! A must read!!!

 

I agree with PP who say it is pretty simplistic, but it was an enjoyable, if cheesy, read that helped open my heart and mind to things forgotten. I would recommend it to the younger generations.

 

i'm very advanced spiritually and i only read very advanced spiritual books and so its not my cup of tea

 

I preferred the Celestine Vision, which was a nonfiction pshychological look at the insights and people's triggers and reactions and such because to be honest, the story in the Prophecy isn't all that great, but the insights are AMAZING. So when he switched to non fiction and therefore no story, but plenty of discussion about each insight and all that good stuff I was happy.