The Celestine Prophecy, or Old Socialism for a New Age - Page 2

Coincidences are spiritual harbingers, and the First Insight is that many people throughout the world will one day notice that they're having an awful lot of coincidences, and that it must all mean something. This mass awareness and yearning for something more (at least, among the enlightened) will spark a New Age in spirituality, science, politics, and psychology.

Flaky readers seeking personal validation will interpret their buying this book as just such a coincidence, proving both its thesis and their own spiritual advancement. Redfield knows how to stroke a crowd's ego, making it clear that such silly happenstances are included in what he means: If you bought the book, you're likely hot stuff. (Skeptics may wish to peruse John Allen Paulos's Innumeracy, in which Paulos demonstrates via probability formulas just how common "coincidences" are in day-to-day life.)

The Celestine Prophecy was initially self-published to much word-of-mouth success on the New Age circuit, and for whatever reason, Warner Books made no effort to correct its typos, redundancies, inaccuracies, and missing colons and comas. Maybe Warner, stumped by the book's success, thought it safest to publish as is. Or maybe after proving publishers wrong, Redfield refused to let anyone tinker with his masterpiece.

Typos aside, consider the general sloppiness. A priest is described as sandy-haired. Two pages later, he is brown-haired. Another character refers to the "sixth decade of the twentieth century," obviously (from the context) meaning the 1960s — the seventh decade.

Consider Redfield's style. His book abounds with three imprecise adjectives — beautiful, incredible, amazing. He uses these three abstract words to describe people, places, ideas, everything. Redfield also lacks a sense of voice. Every character sounds like every other character — American or Peruvian, urban or rural, educated or not. And everyone keeps looking at the yuppie, at each other, at everyone and everything, "with regard."

The Insights are not original. The Third Insight states that the universe is energy and can be mentally controlled, an old New Age chestnut going back to The Kyballion (1912), which, like Redfield, offered quantum physics for scientific support. Fantasists have long toyed with quantum theory (Darker Than You Think, Prince of Darkness, Quarantine), but Redfield's quantum fantasizing is more egregious because, although Warner is selling The Celestine Prophecy as fiction, readers are expected to buy it as truth: The book includes a subscription form for Redfield's newsletter on his continuing spiritual Insights.

Article Author: Thomas M. Sipos

Thomas M. Sipos is the author of the anti-Communist satire, Vampire Nation and Manhattan Sharks. Some of his essays on horror film aesthetics appear in his horror collection, Halloween Candy. He founded the Tabloid Witch Awards horror film contest and festival. …

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