Rating: 
Summary: Very, very bad
Review: This book changed my life, now I realize that I must write a book of my insights for novelists. Here, I'll give you a taste before I publish the calendar, paperback, cookbook, prequel and sequel. Insight Number One: Every single person your narrator meets will sound the same. For example, your narrator's ex-girlfriend will sound just like a reclusive monk living in Peru. Talk about coincidence! It's downright spooky. Spooky is okay because you're writing a DEEP book. Insight Number Two: When you're writing a book and creating a made up philosophy, make sure that every character comments on how brilliant it is. This way your readers will be sure to notice how brilliant it really is. Oh, and, don't be bothered by your own lack of philosophical qualifications, just pretend that your morsels of philosospeak are important truths handed down from an ancient people (who have conveniently disappeared so you don't get hit with any nasty lawsuits.) Readers love that. Insight Number Three: They (your critics) can't handle the truth. (Feel free to say this like Jack Nicholsen, it's more fun.) That's right, your deep book is too much for some people, and that's their problem. Insight Number Four: When in doubt, put your main character in peril. Don't worry about whether or not it's realistic. That way you don't have to spend much time on things like plot and character development. Too much of that plot/character thing kills the marketing niche for your work. Insight Number Five: Ignore the laws of time and space from page one. That way you can have someone voluntarily leave an airport to have coffee with an old friend between flights, carry on a long conversation and head back in taxi number two without ever worrying about traffic, missing the plane, or adding two unnecessary cab fares to the cost of the trip. Insight Number Six: Facts are for suckers and babies. Don't you even worry about research. Gosh, just the word sounds so dull. You're creative, baby, and don't you forget it! Want the other three insights? Be sure and buy my new book/calendar/coffee mug: the cellophane prophecy. Whoops, late breaking news, there's a TENTH insight but I won't have room for that in my first work. Cha-ching, sequel so soon?
Rating:
Summary: Starts weak, gets worse, ends totally embarassing
Review: I had high hopes for this book since I have always enjoyed thought-provoking fiction but was I ever let down! I kept giving it one more chance, thinking it would pick up or turn around but it kept getting worse. Towards the end I had to stop the tape a few times out of embarrassment for the author. I was glad I was listening alone in my car so no one could see or hear that I was actually listening to this drivel. The fact that apparently millions have bought this must be an indicator of how shallow and mentally vapid our society has become.
Rating: 
Summary: An inspirational for inspirational people.
Review: The book is an adventure. Unfortunately many see it as "New Age" drivel and so castigate it as such. Quite what a "New Age" person is can be deabated. As a piece of escapism there is nothing wrong with the book. It is easy reading and many will see parallels with their lives and can use the insights as guides. Their is nothing wrong with this and as an inspirational guide it will open many to spirital pathways. Those who have no idea of these things will denounce the book as "New Age" mumbo-jumbo. Ask them what "New Age" is. None will reach a satisfactory answer. If you are not on a spirital journey treat it as a fictional book and review it as such. If you are on that journey you will find much to delight. I think it's excellent and I'm not "New Age"!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Coloring book metaphysics
Review: Every so often these wretched little masterpieces come up; volumes to help middle of the road "spiritual seekers" reach instant enlightenment through total self absorbtion. This isn't seeking; this being spoon fed tired platitudes at the metaphysical drive-up window. Don't waste your time with this vapid drivel. Challenge yourself and start at the source: Plato.
Rating:
Summary: The potential start of initiation for many !
Review: This book should be read and perceived as the vulgarised version of many, well-constructed theologies, philosophies and ideologies, merging only the most essential key principles of universal thought. In my view, James Redfield is a man with a mission to facilitate access for ALL to certain inner knowings, that are dormant. In addition, easy written language facilitates the reading for people of ALL levels of education. I truely love this book.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone nearing forty
Review: Redfield, does a great job. Through an adventurous trip through the jungle our character learns who he is, and you start to learn who you are, and why you are here
Rating:
Summary: Beware!
Review: The Celestine Prophesy, James Redfield. A manuscript (Redfield uses a capital 'm') written in Aramaic 900 years ago and newly-discovered at a Peruvian archaeological dig, is suppressed by the Catholic Church via its control of the government. The tablet's nine "insights" are slowly revealed to the reader. This fiction was and is promoted with the subtle implication that the psycho-mystical occurrences in the story can be fact in our lives. Its words claim a godliness of purpose. Yet its inference is clearly focused on the self and is very denigrating of Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular. It presents to those who have abandoned the major religions, that a "New Way" has come to put meaning & insight back into life: Visualization of nice material things gets them for you, meditation on human one-ness with the universe brings peace, and acceptance of any non-violent practice of life nurtures both the soul (a physical energy field) and a slowly self-perfecting society. On the last page, Mr. Redfield offers to interpret one's sun & moon sign for thirty bucks and solicits subscription to a New Age newsletter for another thirty. Most other reviews of this novel are quite negative. The reader loses the adventure fantasy because the author intrudes into the story with forced, instructive dialog and pedantic narration. This book is a historically-significant example of New Age literature and everyone should identify it first-hand for what it is. Mr. Redfield, realizing that P.T. Barnum was correct, hopes you'll buy his "enlightening" sequel, entitled The Tenth Insight (hardcover or paperback available). All CP believers who feel I've mean-spiritedly characterized them as gullible & misguided should recall the ancient insight: If the shoe fits... And yet, in compassion, it must be recognized that the search for insight is like the search for water in a vast green forest: You know water is there somewhere but could die of thirst searching on the wrong paths. Almost two thousand years ago a man, Who stands now always at your side, offered a path to water which quenches eternally. Drink and live
Rating: 
Summary: A poor meal for the spiritually hungry.
Review: This book is filled with New Age feel-good pseudoscientific psychobabble that has all the merit and validity of the Psychic Friends Network.
Rating:
Summary: What would Jesus do?
Review: After plowing through James Refield's Celestine Prophecy, I can't help but think of what Jesus himself would have to say about the way He was portrayed at the end of the book as a prime example of someone who had mastered the "Insights". My guess is that He would have cautioned Mr. Redfield to keep His name out of it.
What makes this dribble so maddening is the way that Redfield uses a "B" movie plot to gloss over the patent shortcomings of the "religion" put forth in this book.
In the words of C.S. Lewis (who Redfield might benefit from reading, not only to get a better understanding of Christ, but the learn how to write), there are only two religions in this world, Christianity and Hinduism. Let me guess which one this book is? Poor James Redfield! I guess in order for him to get to the real truth he'll need to start over.
Rating:
Summary: Only those in search of true spirituality can appreciate it
Review: Many people criticize this book because they just don't understand it in depth. This book is not meant to be read superficially. The insights are meant to be studied and applied.
There are two main types of critics to this book:
Those that are ultra-religious and those how only believe that the physical plane is the only reality(To them there is no God or spiritual world) My expirience in the spiritual path have only proved to me that the nine insights are not only real, but they can improve your life like many people could only imagine. I myself have seen the energy fields(especially my own). The concepts of energy fields is not new to oriental cultures, but it's fairly new to occidentals.
I've also expirienced the "coincidences", which I know that they're not products of chance(do you remember your guardian angel bedtime stories?). Everybody should read this book if your remotely interested in going on a deeper spiritual path than the one that conventional religion gives us. Many religions focus on external rituals, following a bunch of rules, and seeing God as someone existing outside themselves(Totally contary to what Jesus Christ originally tought:"Look for the kingdom of God within you"). If you wish to go even deeper into the subject, all this you'll find it in the Celestine prophecy and in the second book, "The Tenth Insight"(an excellent sequal). For those that don't understand the message in this book, don't worry because we are all in diffrent levels in our spiritual evolution. Your time will also come since it is a law of nature and of the cosmos that we all progress.
READ, STUDY AND APPLY THIS BOOK AND YOU WON'T BE SORRY
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