The Celestine Prophecy: My Summary

I'll be frank, I didn't like this book.

It was too "new age" or "hippy" for me.

However, it has a 4.5 out of 5-star rating on Amazon and has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. I may be in the minority, but so be it.

Overall, the book covers a spiritual approach to personal improvement. It is written in a first-person narrator point-of-view as he travels Peru in search of specific manuscripts. These manuscripts have insights into life and how people can evolve into better versions of themselves. The narrator then learns the Insights, one by one, often experiencing the Insight before actually reading the text, while being pursued by forces of the Church and the Peruvian government.

Overall, I found it lacking any substantial credibility and the story was mediocre at best.

However, here's my summary.

My Summary of Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy

The manuscript is divided into segments, or chapters, each devoted to a particular insight into life. The manuscript predicts that in this time period human beings will begin to grasp these insights sequentially, one then another, as we move from where we are now to a completely spiritual culture on earth.

The transformation is beginning with the first insight, this insight always surfaces unconsciously at first, as a profound sense of restlessness. We’re beginning to glimpse an alternative kind of experience. Moments in our lives feel different somehow, more intense and inspiring. We don’t know what this experience is or how to make it last, and when it ends we’re left feeling dissatisfied and restless with a life that seems ordinary again.

We’re all looking for more fulfillment in our lives and we won’t put with anything that seems to bring us down.

The first insight occurs when we become conscious of the coincidences in our lives. These coincidences are happening more and more frequently and when they do, they strike us as beyond what would be expected by pure chance. They feel destined. The experience includes a feeling of mystery and excitement, and therefore, we feel more alive. These coincidences have been the perception behind many great attempts at philosophy, religion, and mythology.  

When a sufficient number of individuals seriously question what’s going on in life, we will begin to find out through the other insights.

Even though we occasionally have the clear insight that something more is going on in life, our habitual way of thinking is to consider such ideas unknowable and then to shrug off this heightened awareness altogether. That’s why the second insight is necessary Once we see the historical background to our awareness, it seems more valid. By understanding the reality of the people who came before us, we can see why we look at the world the way we do, and what our contribution is toward further progress.

At the close of the second millennium, now, we will be able to see the entire period of history as a whole, and we will identify a particular preoccupation that developed during the latter half of this millennium, in what has been called the Modern Age. Our awareness of the coincidences today represents a kind of awakening from this preoccupation.

Image yourself being alive in the year one thousand, in what we have called the Middle Ages. The first thing you must understand is that the reality of this time is being defined by the powerful churchmen of the Christian church. Regardless of which class, peasant or aristocrat, you’re in, you soon realize that social position is secondary to the spiritual reality of life as defined by the church. Life is about passing a spiritual test. All phenomena of life is defined either as the will of God of the malice of the devil.

Imagine that reality is beginning to break down. First, you notice certain improprieties on the part of the church. Suddenly you are in the midst of a religious rebellion. Martin Luther is calling for a complete break from papal Christianity and the rebellion succeeds. All the things you took for granted now need a new definition, especially the nature of God and your relationship to God. With that awareness, the Modern Age begins.

We needed a method of consensus-building, a way to systematically explore this new world of ours, so the scientific method was born. “Explore this place and find out how it works and what it means that we find ourselves alive here”. When the scientific method couldn’t bring back a new picture of God and of mankind’s purpose, we needed something else to do until our questions were answered. We worked to raise our standard of living and sense of security. By focusing on conquering the Earth and using its resources to better our situation, we totally lost ourselves in creating secular security, economic security, to replace the spiritual one we had lost. 

It’s time now to wake up from the preoccupation and reconsider our original question: What’s behind life on this planet? Why are we really here?

In summary, a thousand years ago we lived in a world where God and human spirituality were clearly defined by the church. Then we lost it, or better, we decided there was more to the story. Accordingly, we sent explorers out to discover the real truth and report back, and when they had taken too long we had become preoccupied with a new, secular purpose of settling into the world. We discovered metallic ores that could be melted down and fashioned into all kinds of gadgets. We invented sources of power, first steam then gas and electricity and fission. We systemized farming and mass production and now commanded huge stores of material goods and vast networks of distribution. The problem was that our focused, obsessive drive to conquer nature and make ourselves more comfortable had left the natural systems of the planet polluted and on the verge of collapse. We were reaching a climax in our cultural purpose. We created the means of material security and now we seemed ready to find out why we had done it.

If one can connect and build enough energy, then coincidental events begin to happen consistently. How to connect is not just one insight; it’s all of them.

The third insight says we humans will learn to perceive what was formerly an invisible type of energy. What we perceive a hard matter is mostly empty space with a pattern of energy running through it. Experiments have revealed that when you break apart small aspects of this energy, elementary particles, and try to observe how they operate, the act of observation itself alters the results. As if these elementary particles are influenced by what the experimenter expects. This is true even if the influencer expects the particles to appear in places they couldn’t possibly go, given the laws of the universe as we know them. The stuff of the universe is looking like a kind of energy that is malleable to human intention and expectation in a way that defies our old mechanistic model of the universe.

The human perception of this energy first begins with a heightened sensitivity to beauty. When something strikes us as beautiful, it displays more presence and sharpness of shape and vividness of color. It stands out. It shines.

The next level of perception is to see an energy field hovering about everything. All you have to do is see the beauty and then extend from there.

How human’s compete for energy is the fourth insight. The universe is comprised of one dynamic energy, an energy that can sustain us and respond to our expectations. However, we’ve been disconnected from this source of energy. In the face of this deficit, we have always sought to increase our personal energy in the only manner we have known: by seeking to psychologically steal it from others – an unconscious competition that underlies all human conflict in the world.

Violence comes from the urge humans feel to control and dominate one another. Each of us seeks to find some way to control and thus to remain on top in any encounter. That’s why most relationships eventually turn into power struggles. For a long time, humans have been unconsciously competing for the only part of this energy we have been open to: the part that flows between people. This is what human conflict has always been about, at every level: from all the petty family conflicts to wars between nations. It’s the result of feeling insecure and weak and having to steal someone else’s energy to feel ok.

The fifth insight is a new understanding called mystical consciousness. This is a process where we receive energy from another source. Food is the first way of gaining energy. You must savor and appreciate the taste of the food. After eating, you become more sensitive to energy in all things. Everything around us has energy. You have to be open, to connect, to use your sense of appreciation. Allow love to enter you. When you get to the level where you feel love, then you can gain and give energy willingly.

The first insight occurs when we take the coincidences seriously. The second insight institutes our awareness of our place in history. The third insight beings a new view of life. The fourth exposes the human tendency to steal energy from others. The fifth shows us that the universe can provide all we need.

When something occurs beyond to chance to us, we feel as though we are attaining what destiny is leading us to become. We have become a new person, lifted higher by the energy of the coincidence. We fill up, grow, fill up, grow, and repeat. That is what this movement toward a worldwide spiritual consciousness is all about.

Before we can connect with the energy on a permanent basis we must face our particular way of controlling others. This is called a control drama. The first step is to bring our particular control drama into full consciousness. Nothing can proceed until we really look at ourselves and discover what we are doing to manipulate for energy. Each of us must go back into our past, back into our early family life, and see how this habit was formed. It is always in relation to our family members that we develop our particular dramas. Each person must interpret their family experience from an evolutionary point of view, from a spiritual point of view, and discover who he really is.

Everyone manipulates for energy either aggressively or passively. For instance, if someone threatens you, either verbally or physically, then you are forced, for fear of something bad happening to you, to pay attention to him and so to give him energy. The person threatening you would be pulling you into the most aggressive kind of drama, the intimidator. On the other hand, someone tells you all the horrible things that are already happening to them, implying perhaps that you are responsible, and that, if you refuse to help, these horrible things are going to continue, then this person is seeking to control at the most passive level, with the “poor me” drama. If a person is subtle, finding fault and slowly undermining you to get energy, they are an interrogator. Less passive that the “poor me” is the aloofness drama. So in order of dramas it goes: Intimidator, interrogator, aloof, and poor me.

A person goes to whatever extreme to get attention from their family. This strategy becomes their dominant way of controlling to get energy from everyone.

Aloof people create interrogators. Interrogators create aloof. Intimidators create the poor me and visa versa.

The process of finding your true identity involves looking at your whole life as one long story, trying to find a higher meaning. Starting with why were you born into this particular family? We are not merely physical creations of our parents, but we are also spiritual creations. Your path is about discovering a truth that is a higher synthesis of what these two-people believed. How would you express what your parents taught you? Look closely at all the other things that have happened to you since birth. If you view your life as a story, you’ll be able to see how you have been working on this question all along. We must look at the significant turns in our lives and reinterpret them in light of our evolutionary question. Life’s meaning is connected to the problem of transcending our past conditioning and moving our lives forward. We all have a spiritual purpose, a mission, that we have been pursuing without being fully aware of it. Once we bring it to consciousness, our lives can take off.

Humans are born into their historical situations and find something to stand for. They form a union with another human who also has found some purpose. The children born to this union then reconcile these two positions by pursuing a higher synthesis, guided by coincidences. Each time we fill up with energy and a coincidence occurs to lead us forward in our lives, we institute this level of energy in ourselves, and so we can exist at a higher vibration. Our children take our level of vibration and raise it higher. This is how humans evolve.

Once you learn what your life is about, you will feel like you are missing something if you try to do something else with your life.

As you fill up with inner energy, other kinds of thoughts enter your mind from a higher part of yourself. These are your intuitions. 

First, build sufficient energy, then remember your basic life question. Next, center yourself on your path by discovering the smaller questions that currently confront you in life. These questions always pertain to your larger question and define where you currently are in your lifelong question. You will then get some kind of intuition as to what to do and where to go. Once you get the questions right, the answers will come sooner or later.

The seventh insight talks about the way objects jump out at us through dreams. It says to compare the story of the dream to the story of your life. Dreams come to tell us something about our lives that we are missing. Thoughts and daydreams also guide us. To recognize the value of them, we must take an observer position. We must ask ourselves Why? All the answers that mysteriously come to us really come through other people. Not all the people you meet will have the clarity to reveal the message they have for you. You must help them by sending them energy. We must assume every event has significance and contains a message that somehow pertains to our questions. The challenge is to find the silver lining in every event.

The eight insight speaks about how to project energy to others and avoid addictions to people. It begins with children. The worst thing that can be done to children is to drain their energy by correcting them. They should always be included in conversations, especially conversations about themselves. You should never take responsibility for more children than you can give attention to. One adult and one child. That’s the rule. If you go above this ratio, the children will begin to compete with each other for the adult’s time and attention. Always tell children the truth. 

An addiction to another person halts our growth. This is why power struggles arise in romantic relationships. When love first happens, the two individuals are giving each other energy unconsciously and both people feel buoyant and elated. Unfortunately, once they expect this feeling to come from the other person, they cut themselves off from the energy in the universe and begin to rely even more on the energy from each other – only now there doesn’t seem to be enough and so they stop giving each other energy and fall back into their control dramas in an attempt to control each other and force the other’s energy their way. The reason we get addicted is because we’ve yet to access the opposite sex energy in ourselves. Mystical energy comes in both male and female form. We need to acquire both from ourselves before we can efficiently integrate with others. The idea is to experience a sense of well-being and euphoria experienced in a relationship when you are alone.

How we approach other people determines how quickly our life questions are answered. If we have a conversation with someone who crosses our path and we do not see a message pertaining to our current questions, it does not mean there was no message. It only means we missed it for some reason. The more we can love and appreciate others, the more energy flows into us. That’s why loving and energizing others is the best possible thing we can do for ourselves. Sudden and spontaneous eye contact is a sign that two people should talk. Seeing someone who looks familiar, even though you know you’ve never seen the person before is another sign.

As members of any group talk, only one will have the most powerful idea at any one point in time. If they are alert, the others in the group can feel who is about to speak, and then they can consciously focus on this person, helping to bring out his idea with the greatest clarity. If you concentrate on what is being said, you can feel when it is your turn. The idea will come up into your mind. Everyone should start consciously relating with each other instead of trying to overpower each other.

The ninth insight explains how human culture will change as a result of conscious evolution. Humans will voluntarily decrease our population so that we may all live in the most powerful and beautiful places on earth. The means of survival will be totally automated and at everyone’s disposal. Guided by intuition, everyone will know what to do and when to do it. No one will consume excessively because we will have let go of the need to possess and control for security. Our sense of purpose will be satisfied by the thrill of our own evolution. Think about how it would be for two people meeting for the first time. Each will first observe the other’s energy field, exposing any manipulations. Once clear, they will consciously share life stories until, elatedly, messages are discovered. Afterward, each will go forward again on their individual journey with new information.

Mankind is on this planet to consciously evolve. Our first evolution will be to grasp how beautiful and spiritual the natural world is. Our desire to protect it will lead those closest to nature to solve pollution and environmental dangers. The next shift will be in the automation of the production of goods. What automation is actually doing is freeing up everyone’s time so we can pursue other endeavors. We will find ways to cut our employment hours. Two or three people will hold what used to be one full-time job. This trend will make it easier for those displaced by the automation to find at least part-time jobs. This will provide us the time and flexibility to give freely to the world. When we begin to constantly give to others, we will always have more coming in than we could possibly give away.

Conclusion

As you can tell, the book is based on one guy's thoughts on how people should act and he has some mumbo jumbo story about why.

To me, I would rather see data or at least some kind of proof this is even close to the correct path to follow. I would also enjoy more action-based suggestions instead of outcome-based.

If you want, you can read the book yourself. I don't suggest it though.