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Summary: This is not a book of Prophecy,is an enlightening ones story
Review: If you want a book of Prophecy read Karl Maddox SB 1 or God If you want a mans opinion of a way to better yourself spiritually read Celestine Prophecy. The Book goes through a humble story starting in the states and a venture to south america looking for a sacred.... that has several insights that are explained by redfield. I did not like the way the book was written at all but I loved the effort redfield put into this book from pure desire and imagination to make a contribution to us in a matter of teaching us peace. Well, how many normal everyday people have tried that and gotten this far? Certainly not Rashnesh. Redfield is mainstream person but not mainstream writer as his views are quite side line. Check out Karl Maddox for a real prophecy book.
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Summary: Stuffy philosophy in fluffy packaging -- well, *I* liked it.
Review: I enjoyed this book immensely, (...). Was I "taken in?" Did I unintentionally sacrifice my intellectualism for the cheap thrill of a simplistic philosophy from a childlike hippie? So I feared as I poured through scathing assessments and derisive mockings of the tenets put forth in the book. So much has already been written, that I feel there's only a little that I can add -- but I'll add it anyways. This book reads more like a Socratic dialogue than an actual believable tale. Some have criticized the so-called plot; when really, the plot serves only as a vehicle to take you to the next lesson. Each "insight" is presented as a topic for discussion, often with an example of the insight's application through the narrator's success or failure at realizing its meaning. So you've got stuffy philsophical, dare I say "new age" topics wrapped in an easily digestible format than a academic dissertation or a sociology textbook would present. This stuff isn't new. The philosophy espoused will never be adopted by everyone. But boy is it neat to imagine the world if these "Insights" were actually true. Okay, I just came off reading some of John Edward's books and some of Richard Bach's books, so I was well-prepared to digest this one. Whether you're a follower of Eastern philosophy or a Star Wars fan, you probably are receptive to the idea of a latent energy inherent in the world, and this book constructs a fanciful explanation of that energy that, with a little suspension of disbelief, warms your heart.
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Summary: Simplistic, naive, but lucid
Review: When I first picked this book off the shelf, I admit laughed out loud at its stylistic childishness. But, as my method of reading is always to give the author the benefit of the doubt, I decided to read the whole thing. When I was finished, I was dissatisfied with much of it, to be specific, Insights #'s 1,2,3 and 9. I did not like the metaphysical context. However, the ethical doctrine expounded I found very mature, and people should not be so quick to throw this book away. There is the argument that it is not original. That is absolutely correct. Redfield is indeed describing concepts expounded widely not only in Eastern but also in Western philosophy. But you could say that about any philosopher. Moreover, the ideas are presented in a very clear and simple manner, making these old ideas more accessible to a wider audience. Despite unoriginality, grammatical errors, naivete, or whatever other grounds are used to criticise this book, the fact of the matter is that we all stand to gain by its advice. Advanced studies of sociology or philosophy are not going to get you much further, in terms of how to interact with other people, than what is to be found in the Celestine Prophecy. Most of it is garbage but there is some gold in it, which cannot be said of very many other best-sellers, if it is possible at all.
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Summary: Not a good book
Review: I heard that this was a really good book. Since reading it however, I have learned that my friends who recommended it have very poor taste, and that they don't know bad fiction when they see it. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
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Summary: L. Ron Hubbard Meets Ayn Rand
Review: The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield is a self-help book. It provides advice to people who are feeling lonely and sad. Like the self-help books of Dale Carnegie (How To Stop Worrying And Start Living) and Norman Vincent Peale (The Power Of Positive Thinking) it gives encouragement to people who are feeling overwhelmed. It's also an introduction to Eastern religious mysticism. It's also a novel with some science fiction elements (written without any metaphors - the lack of metaphors makes the translator's job easier) that tells the story of a man who makes a trip to Peru in search of an ancient manuscript that contains nine insights into the meaning of life. The man's name is never given, and the reader is left wondering whether it is Redfield himself who is narrating the story. The manuscript is said to have been written in Aramaic, about 600 B.C., but Redfield never explains how it ended up in Peru. (Here the book contains a factual error. We are told that Aramaic is "the same language in which much of the Old Testament was written," but in fact, the Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew. Very little of it was written in Aramaic.) Our hero proceeds on his quest, and encounters quite a bit of unexplained hostility from the Peruvian government and the Roman Catholic church. Undaunted, he continues his journey, dodging bullets, falling in love, and discovering insights, until at last he has found all nine of them. (It turns out that none of them would be anything new to a person who was familiar with Eastern religious philosophy. Our hero could have saved himself quite a bit of trouble by simply going to a library and looking up Buddhism in a good encyclopedia.) The character development is weak. Redfield gives us characters who move rapidly from moods of serene tranquillity to explosive rage, and then back to tranquillity again. One of Redfield's favorite literary devices is to have the narrator encounter a mysterious stranger who leads him to the next insight and then dies in a blaze of gunfire. The book contains enough pseudoscientific claptrap to gag any thinking person, and I'm not even going to begin trying to detail it all. Here I will just say that the idea of using life's mysterious coincidences (unrelated events that have the superficial appearance of relatedness) to guide us in making decisions seems flaky to me. People who think this way are going to fall for every charlatan that comes along. If you like the books of Deepak Chopra and Uri Geller, and others of their New Age mystical ilk, you'll like The Celestine Prophecy. But if you prefer books that have a more hard-bitten edge of reality to them, I would recommend, for a self-help book, The Conquest Of Happiness by Bertrand Russell, and for a religious novel, The Flight Of Peter Fromm by Martin Gardner. Also, I recommend the books of Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World), James Randi (Flim-Flam!), and Richard Dawkins (Climbing Mount Improbable.) These books should cure you of any brain damage that was caused by reading Redfield's drivel. The Celestine Prophecy must satisfy something in people, or it wouldn't have become such a major best-seller. Redfield himself explains the book's popularity by saying that "there is a need out there to discuss the spiritual experiences that are coming into consciousness simultaneously for all of us." He obviously takes his own fiction very seriously.
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Summary: Take this test:
Review: Friends, As you already know from everyone else who reviewed this book, it presents social ideals without thought to economic responsibiliy. Rather than take my word for it, make a list of the relevant information given in the book and research it for yourself. In my humble, but educated opinion, only about 5% of this book has some relevancy. Peaceful being is also found in virtually every other religious/New Age book in written history. Find yourself, but do not forget your personal and social responsibilities.
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Summary: I can't believe this is popular
Review: I don't usually write reviews for products I dislike, but this warrants a kind of special loathing in my heart, probably because it sold so well. I was recommended this book by so many people, I was sure I'd enjoy it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Awesomely badly written, full of grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors (at least one per page - I took a highlighter pen to my copy and returned it to the publisher. Funnily enough, they didn't respond.), this book is truly dire. Purporting to contain great insight into a personal, spiritual journey, it is instead a collection of trite, hackneyed and banal observations culled from entry level psychology textbooks. Predictable in the extreme, it was so condescending and pathetic I felt almost revulsed. But what astonished me was that so many people failed to see it as anything but inspirational. My best guess is that these people have never studied pyschology or sociology, much less read a textbook on the subject. My recommendation? Avoid this like the plague and read a textbook instead.
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Summary: Thank you Celestine Prophecy
Review: The only thing good about this book is it inspired me to try to bang out a cheap novel and be able to get it published. Hey if this guy can do it. so can I!
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Summary: How do you dispose of a book you hate?
Review: How do you dispose of a book you hate? I mean loathe. I mean looooathe.
Because I've got this copy of The Celestine Prophecy... I'm a confessed pack-rat. In my family this appears to be, like hemophilia, a sex-linked disorder affecting every other generation of males, which explains my maternal grandfather's penchant for collecting everything from buttonhooks to soapbox labels and mine for refrigerator magnets, stamps, business cards and books. Books are eliminated from my collection only when shelf space becomes a critical issue. So about this copy of The Celestine Prophecy... It is not that the spiritual tenets espoused in this book are implausible, for I have no trouble in believing in the words Charlotte spins in her web, in Valentine Michael Smith's ability to grok, or in Lestat's unusual appetite. It is that James Redfield, the author, has failed miserably in convincing me that those nine or ten (or however many there are) insights are anything by laughable, let alone insightful. This is not prophecy, but MacProphecy...seventy bazillion copies sold worldwide. At least the Big Mac provides some semblance of nourishment. Do I sound angry? Well, I am. Because I'm stuck with this copy of The Celestine Prophecy, which I hate. No, loathe. No, looooathe. I can't very well recommend it to my friends, and I don't particularly want to antagonize my enemies. Occasionally in the past I have donated books to patient libraries at various hosptials, but the last thing I want to do is give The Celestine Prophecy to someone who's already sick. Sell it to a used bookstore? I'd feel like a pimp. And while this is certainly the most telling argurment I have yet encountered in favor of book burning, I cannot quite bring myself to break that particular taboo.
The parallels to nuclear waste disposal have not escaped me. Shortly after reading this book I was on a bus riding from downtown Lima, Peru to the pier in Miraflores when a woman struck up a conversation with me about my recent hike of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. She asked me if I had read The Celestine Prophecy and cited the single reference in the book to Machu Picchu, giving me the page number from memory. She asked me what I though of the book. I told her I didn't much care for it. Before shunning me, she gave me a look of mixed derision and pity. Well, she was at least half right: I am to be pitied. Because I have this copy of The Celestine Prophecy...
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Summary: Y'all Need to Wake Up from La La Land
Review: This drum-circle, hippy-dippy, New Age, 'magic-happens', 'things happen for a reason', comfortable yuppy book makes me queasy with its simplistic ideas about love, enlightenment and destiny. Furthermore, it reads like an elementary-school book. I kept waiting for the line 'Mary had a little lamb...' Do people really fall for this domesticated dribble about 'what really goes on' when people interact? Do people really believe that the world is just a place where comfortable Americans can go on magical quests to find the secrets of self-realization and universal love? I hate to break the news to you, but we are not all one, we are not the world, and consumer Anglo America lives in a bubble of comfort and ignorance as fragile as the postulates intimated in this dribble of a story. By following the author's realizations, you will be more lost than ever. I recommend instead Robert Young Pelton's "The World's Most Dangerous Places" as a healthy antidote to this fantasy tome. Think positive yes. But don't throw away your capacity to reason in a rational manner. And please don't just rely on faith and magical little secrets to help bring about a better world. Its going to take a bit more sacrifice on our part than that. When the environmental problem came 'round, the biggest choice we were forced to make was 'Paper or Plastic?' in the Supermarket. Now with the real world of international strife knocking at our back door, its all about waving American Flags. And in our 'spiritual crises' (i.e.- there are a lot of lost souls out there), we read this book and dream that some magic 'not-a-coincidence' meeting or event will change everything in our lives. Put the flag in the paper bag, this book in the plastic, and check me the (...) out of this 'A Boy and His Dog' nightmare! Don't get me wrong- on many marks I'm a huge patriot- I just hate to see so many Americans mislead by books this. We are in a recession and a time or war. You can live by books such as the Celestine Prophecy only if you keep your head buried in the sand.
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