Rating: 
Summary: Shallow amusement and some spiritual tickling
Review: I enjoyed this book. I enjoy most books i finish. I wont be recommending it to my friends though because i think it falls a long way short of brilliant.I think this book requires in the reader a certain leap of faith, an understanding or a belief in meditation, esp, extraspiritual etc. I believe in all these things, i meditate etc and try to keep an open mind. The story was rubbish but i found myself intrigued as to the final conclusions of the 'insights'. But is this book aimed at everyone? This is not start and finish spirituality. Anyone who judges it on this level is wrong to. And its not a book you would recommend for the plot. So whats it all about? My conclusion is that its a thinly disguised self help book, but lacks enough of the 'guidance' as to be of little use. Buy this book if you want some shallow amusement and some spiritual tickling but please dont embrace this book as the ultimate read.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't put it down!
Review: This is a great book, I have read it at least 10 times and every time I can't put it down. In an fiction style it brings up many of the questions that people face in our day in age. You could even call it a spiritual thriller!
Rating: 
Summary: The Emperors New Clothes
Review: I read this book as a favor to a friend and now I have one less friend. I hate to put it like that but how can I have any respect for a person who considers "this" book the highest philosophical achievement attained in the last several thousand years? I can empathize with a person who has been exposed to almost no spirituality or logic or philosophy, finding some interesting insights into life. But I would expect similar comments and enthusiasm from a person who had never read any kind of a book, picking up the "Pokey Little Puppy" and being enthralled by the exciting plot twists. In short, the greatest of his "insights" were learned by most folks in their adolescence and have been expressed in more cohesive and lucid form by nearly every other author who has chosen to write about them. If you are the type of person who will give this book 5 stars this review won't make much sense to you and I'd hate to have you waste the time flipping through a dictionary, but for everyone else, go to a good chinese restaraunt spend the same amount of money and get the better intellectual stimulation by asking for 9 fortune cookies at the end of your meal. Doing so may not change your life but you will certainly feel full and satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest parable ever told
Review: The last few reviews that gave this book a one star are very disappointing. If you don't like a book, at least give some valid reasons as to why. Or give a few things that the book could have had. Those last few reviews didn't even give even one single reason, which is very unhelpful. I think this book is the greatest parable ever told since it combines many great spiritual and metaphysical and mystical truths into one great story. The plot and the narrative of course isn't the best, but the spiritual aspects of it are absolutely splendid. The great thing about this book is that it puts very complicated ideas that most people would consider esoterical into a form that any layperson could understand. When I read this book, I was amazed at how much in common my own personal philosophies, which I developed independently, had with this book. Hope everyone at least gives this book a chance. Thanks, Winston
Rating:
Summary: Only The Most Important New Age Masterpiece Ever Written
Review: From Boston, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2000. I recall reading in TIME MAGAZINE that THE CELESTINE PROPHECY was first sold by the author, James Redfield, out of the truck of his car until the genius of its insights was spread by word of mouth to such an extent that the rights were acquired by a major publishing house. A friend to whom I recently recommended THE CELESTINE PROPHECY apprised me of its poor reviews in this space, and I felt compelled to correct the record. In my mind and the minds of many others, THE CELESTINE PROPHECY is one of the greatest books ever written. As an adventure story THE CELESTINE PROPHECY cannot compete with well written thrillers by Creighton, King or many others. But, for the benefit of those who just do not get it (and some do not), it is the insights imparted by Redfield in the course of his story that make this Book a true masterpiece. These thoroughly modern insights, which represent nothing less than the blissful marriage of scientific discovery over the last 500 years with philosophical traditions that have survived for thousands of years, are breathtaking in their ability to reshape one's view of all existence and his/her position in it. Redfield may not have been the first to experience these insights, but no other writer of our time has articulated as many of these insights in one place or revealed them in such a compelling manner. In Stephen Hawkin's A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, the great astrophysicist laments that philosophers have not been able to keep up with scientific discovery. In THE CELESTINE PROPHECY Redfield helps us all catch up and then some! Still skeptical? How then would you explain that THE CELESTINE PROPHECY was one of the best selling books of the 1990s? Or that it has changed for the better my life and those of countless others who have read it? I assume that there are so few reviews like mine in this place because most of the Book's fans have used it as a launching pad to continue their examination of life from a New Age perspective and simply do not visit this spot at Amazon. But I am certain that if they did, this space would be flooded by a tidal wave of similarly positive reviews. If you're looking for a cheap adventure story, by all means read something else! If you're a philosopher who is interested in understanding WHAT LIFE REALLY MEANS in the year 2000, stop right here, purchase this book, and "do NOT pass GO or collect your $200" until you've read every last page! ...
Rating:
Summary: Pure Junk
Review: For years I'd resisted this book and finally gave in when somebody loaned it to me. My fears were completely justified. The Celestine Prophesy has somehow been passed as a self-help revelation of sorts but it's really just cutesy trash. It features hack plot driven by poor writing and characters more two dimensional than the screen you're staring at. The "insights" are as laughably stupid as they are impossible to achieve by simply reading the book. If you like trash, spend your money more wisely and buy Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls. That at least has a plot and some real insight.
Rating:
Summary: In The Minus
Review: This book does not pose any questions that I care to have answered. Thank God.
Rating:
Summary: OH, COME ON....
Review: Oh, come on, people, are your lives so shallow that you need this trite and fluffy stuff to nourish your spirituality? I know the book has been enormously popular and I guess that just goes to show how distant we've all become--from each other and from ourselves. I found this book so unappealing I couldn't even finish it. I was going to throw it away, but donated it to the local library instead. Some lost and bereft soul might read it and actually believe he benefits. There is absolutely nothing of value between the covers of this book. It would have been worth more had the author left the pages blank. Then I could have at least used it for notes.
Rating: 
Summary: Celestine Prophecy: A Learning Process
Review: I've just finished the book for the second time, and I'm fascinated by James Redfield's view of the future of our world. I plan to re-read 'The Tenth Insight', and have ordered 'The Secret of Shambala', both of which continue the Prophecy tale. His message is satisfying and exciting. His writing skills could use some help. Our nameless hero, written in the first person and not otherwise identified, is two-dimensional and incomplete. I kept reading for the message, which could have been as easily done without the fictional tale, and not for any depth of interest in the various and forgettable characters. As I recall, 'Tenth Insight' improved somewhat, and perhaps there is hope for 'Shambala'. Readers might enjoy, as I did, 'Analysis of the Spirit', by Carolyn Myss, Phd., a more serious, non-fiction look at the health and healing of the human spirit, but an adventure, none-the-less. Prophecy is yet very worth reading, despite its first-book flaws.
Rating:
Summary: Only for the brain dead...
Review: I have just finished reading the reviews on this pathetic little book, and feel a need to put in my two sense worth. First, let me clarify that I, too, was under the false assumption that this was an adventure book with a spiritual subtext (a la Carlos Castenada, or C.S.Lewis; with maybe a bit of George Lucas thrown in...)Secondly, I started reading the book while under the influence of pain-killers, as I have been confined to my home while recovering from surgery. I was looking forward to some fun, exciting, uplifting and easy reading to pass the time. Well, 'easy' was the only one of those qualities I found, and even that term is an understatement! At first, I thought the flatness of the story-telling, and the one-dimensionality of the characters was due to the Vicodin I'd been swallowing the last week. So I cut back, and switched to aspirin. BIG MISTAKE! And NO change in the quality of the narrative, etc. In fact, once my head cleared, the story just got worse and worse. Like all the other reviewers that gave this book one star, I found: *Poor to non-existent plot *Stick-figure characters *Same old New Age pop-psych ideas *Historical and factual errors (Maya in Peru? ) *Meaningless use of such words as 'energy',or 'vibration';incorrect understanding of 'evolution'(Evolution is NOT necessarily synonamous with Progress). *Grade scool level writing Anyway, given the overwhelming number of 2-5 star reviews this book has received, I'd say it isn't humanity's 'energy' level that needs raising so much as our collective IQ! In short, this book is garbage.
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