The Celestine Prophecy

by James Redfield

  “What did it say?” I asked Phil.

  He paused, thinking, so Dobson asked again that we sit down. He led us to a spot where a tarpaulin was laid out in the center of a partial clearing. The place was beautiful. A dozen large trees formed a circle about thirty feet in diameter. Within the circle were highly fragrant tropical bushes and long-stemmed ferns of the brightest green I had ever seen. We sat facing each other.

  Phil looked at Dobson. Then Dobson looked at Sanchez and me and said, “The Ninth Insight explains how human culture will change in the next millennium as a result of conscious evolution. It describes a significantly different way of life. For instance, the Manuscript predicts that we humans will voluntarily decrease our population so that we all may live in the most powerful and beautiful places on the Earth. But remarkably, many more of these areas will exist in the future, because we will intentionally let the forests go uncut so that they can mature and build energy.

  “According to the Ninth Insight, by the middle of the next millennium,” he continued, “humans will typically live among five hundred year old trees and carefully tended gardens, yet within easy travel distance of an urban area of incredible technological wizardry. By then, the means of survival—foodstuffs and clothing and transportation—will all be totally automated and at everyone’s disposal. Our needs will be completely met without the exchange of any currency, yet also without any overindulgence or laziness.

  “Guided by their intuitions, everyone will know precisely what to do and when to do it, and this will fit harmoniously with the actions of others. No one will consume excessively because we will have let go of the need to possess and to control for security. In the next millennium, life will have become about something else.

  “According to the Manuscript,” he went on, “our sense of purpose will be satisfied by the thrill of our own evolution—by the elation of receiving intuitions and then watching closely as our destinies unfold. The Ninth depicts a human world where everyone has slowed down and become more alert, ever vigilant for the next meaningful encounter that comes along. We will know that it could occur anywhere: on a path that winds through a forest, for instance, or on a bridge that traverses some canyon.

  “Can you visualize human encounters that have this much meaning and significance? Think 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, but they will be significantly altered. They will vibrate at a new level and will thereafter touch others in a way not possible before their meeting.”

  As we gave him energy, Dobson became ever more eloquent and inspired with his description of the new human culture. And what he said rang true. I personally had no doubt that he was describing an achievable future. Yet I also knew that throughout history many visionaries had glimpsed such a world, Marx for example, yet no way had been found to create such a utopia. Communism had become a tragedy.

  Even with the knowledge imparted in the first eight insights, I couldn’t imagine how the human race could get to the place described by the Ninth, considering human behavior generally. When Dobson paused, I voiced my concern.

  “The Manuscript says our natural pursuit of the truth will lead us there,” Dobson explained, smiling directly at me. “But to grasp how this movement will occur, perhaps it is necessary to visualize the next millennium in the same manner you studied the current one with me on the airplane, remember? As though you were living through it in one lifetime?”

  Dobson briefly informed the other men of the process and then continued, “Think about what has occurred already in this millennium. During the Middle Ages we lived in a simple world of good and evil, defined by the churchmen. But during the Renaissance we broke free. We knew there had to be more to man’s situation in the universe than the churchmen knew, and we wanted the full story.

  “We then sent science out to discover our true situation, but when this effort didn’t provide the answers we needed right away, we decided to settle in, and turned our modern work ethic into a preoccupation that secularized reality and squeezed the mystery out of the world. But now, we can see the truth of that preoccupation. We can see that the real reason we spent five centuries creating material supports for human life was to set the stage for something else, a way of life that returns the mystery to existence.

  “That is what the information now returning from the scientific method indicates: mankind is on this planet to consciously evolve. And as we learn to evolve and pursue our particular path, truth by truth, the Ninth Insight says the overall culture will transform in a very predictable way.”

  He paused, but no one said anything. Obviously we wanted to hear more.

  “Once we reach the critical mass,” he continued, “and the insights begin to come in on a global scale, the human race will first experience a period of intense introspection. We’ll grasp how beautiful and spiritual the natural world really is. We’ll see trees and rivers and mountains as temples of great power to be held in reverence and awe. We’ll demand an end to any economic activity that threatens this treasure. And those closest to this situation will find alternative solutions to this pollution problem because someone will intuit these alternatives as they seek their own evolution.

  “This will be part of the first great shift that will occur,” he continued, “which will be a dramatic movement of individuals from one occupation to another—because when people begin to receive clear intuitions of who they really are and what they’re supposed to be doing, they very often discover they’re in the wrong job and they have to jump to another type work in order to continue to grow. The Manuscript says that during this period people will sometimes change careers several times during their lifetimes.

  “The next cultural shift will be an automation of the production of goods. To the people who are doing the automating, the technicians, this will feel like a need to make the economy run more efficiently. But as their intuitions become clearer, they will see that what automation is actually doing is freeing up everyone’s time, so that we can pursue other endeavors.

  “The rest of us, meanwhile, will be following our own intuitions within our chosen occupations and wishing we had even more of this free time. We will realize that the truth we have to tell and the things we have to do are too unique to fit within a usual job setting. So we will find ways to cut our employment hours to pursue our own truth: 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.”

  “But what about money?” I asked. “I can’t believe people will voluntarily reduce their incomes.”

  “Oh, we won’t have to,” Dobson said. “The Manuscript says our incomes will remain stable because of the people who are giving us money for the insights we provide.”

  I almost laughed. “What?”

  He smiled and looked directly at me. “The Manuscript says that as we discover more about the energy dynamics of the universe, we will see what really happens when we give someone something. Right now the only spiritual idea about giving is the narrow concept of religious tithing.”

  He moved his gaze to Father Sanchez. “As you know, the scriptural notion of tithing is interpreted most commonly as an injunction to give ten percent of one’s income to a church. The idea behind this is that whatever we give will be returned many times. But the Ninth Insight explains that giving is really a universal principle of support, not just for churches, but for everyone. When we give, we receive in return because of the way energy interacts in the universe. Remember, when we project energy into someone this creates a void in ourselves which, if we are connected, fills up again. Money works exactly the same way. The Ninth Insight says that once we begin to give constantly, we will always have more coming in than we could possibly give away.<
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  “And our gifts,” he went on, “should go to the persons who have given us spiritual truth. When people come into our lives at just the right time to give us the answers we need, we should give them money. This is how we will begin to supplement our incomes and ease out of the occupations which limit us. As more people engage in this spiritual economy we will begin a real shift into the culture of the next millennium. We will have moved through the stage of evolving into our right occupation and will be entering the stage of getting paid for evolving freely and offering our unique truth to others.”

  I looked at Sanchez; he was listening intensely and appeared radiant.

  “Yes,” he said to Dobson. “I see that clearly. If everyone were participating then we would be giving and receiving constantly and this interaction with others, this exchange of information, would become everyone’s new work, our new economic orientation. We’d be paid by the people we touched. This situation would then allow the material supports of life to become fully automated, because we would be too busy to own those systems, or to operate them. We would want material production automated and run like a utility. We’d own stock in it, perhaps, but the situation would free us up to expand what is already the information age.

  “But the important thing for us right now is that we can now understand where we are going. We could not save the environment and democratize the planet and feed the poor before because for so long we could not release our fear of scarcity and our need to control, so that we could give to others. We couldn’t release it because we had no view of life that served as an alternative. Now we do!”

  He looked at Phil. “But wouldn’t we need a cheap source of energy?”

  “Fusion, superconductivity, artificial intelligence,” Phil said. “The technology to automate is probably not that far away, now that we have the knowledge of why to do it.”

  “That’s right,” Dobson said. “The most important thing is that we see the truth of this way of life. We’re here on this planet not to build personal empires of control, but to evolve. Paying others for their insights will begin the transformation and then as more and more parts of the economy are automated, currency will disappear altogether. We won’t need it. If we are correctly following our intuitive guidance then we will take only what we need.”

  “And we’ll understand,” Phil interjected, “that the natural areas of the Earth have to be nurtured and protected for the sources of incredible power that they are.”

  As Phil spoke, our full attention went to him. He seemed surprised by the lift it provided.

  “I haven’t studied all of the insights,” he said, looking at me. “In fact, after the guard helped me escape, I might not have kept this part of the Ninth at all if I hadn’t run into you earlier. I remembered what you said about this Manuscript being important. But even though I haven’t read the other insights, I do understand the importance of keeping the automation in harmony with the energy dynamics of the Earth.

  “My interest has been forests and the part they play in the ecosphere,” he continued. “I know now that it always has been, ever since I was a child. The Ninth Insight says that as the human race evolves spiritually, we will voluntarily decrease the population to a point sustainable by the Earth. We will be committed to living within the natural energy systems of the planet. Farming will be automated except for the plants one wants to energize personally and then consume. The trees necessary for construction will be grown in special, designated areas. This will free the remainder of the Earth’s trees to grow and age and finally mature into powerful forests.

  “Eventually, these forests will be the rule rather than the exception, and all human beings will live in close proximity to this kind of power. Think what an energy-filled world we will live in.”

  “That ought to raise everyone’s energy level,” I said.

  “Yes, it would,” Sanchez said distractedly, as though he were thinking ahead about what the increase in energy would mean.

  Everyone waited.

  “It would accelerate,” he said finally, “the pace of our evolution. The more readily we have energy flowing into us, the more mysteriously the universe responds by bringing people into our lives to answer our questions.” He looked thoughtful again. “And every time we follow an intuition and some mysterious encounter leads us forward, our personal vibration increases.

  “Onward and upward,” he continued, half to himself. “If history continues, then …”

  “We’ll continue to achieve higher and higher levels of energy and vibration,” Dobson said, finishing his sentence.

  “Yes,” Sanchez said. “That’s it. Excuse me for a minute.” He got up and walked several yards into the forest and sat down alone.

  “What else does the Ninth Insight say?” I asked Dobson.

  “We don’t know,” he said. “That’s where the part we have ends. Would you like to see it?”

  I told him I would, so he walked to his truck and came back with a manila folder. Inside were twenty typed pages. I read the manuscript, impressed with how thoroughly Dobson and Phil had captured its basic points. When I came to the last page I understood why they said it was only a part of the Ninth Insight. It ended abruptly, in the middle of a concept. Having just introduced the idea that the transformation of the planet would create a totally spiritual culture and would raise human beings to higher and higher vibrations, it suggested that this rise would lead to the occurrence of something else, but it didn’t say what.

  After an hour, Sanchez stood up and walked over to me. I had been content to sit with the plants, observing their incredible energy fields. Dobson and Phil were standing behind their jeep talking. “I think we should go on to Iquitos,” he said.

  “What about those soldiers?” I asked.

  “I think we should risk it. I’ve had a clear thought that we can make it through if we leave right now.”

  I agreed to go with his intuition and we walked over and told Dobson and Phil our plans.

  Both men supported the idea, then Dobson said, “We’ve also been discussing what to do. We’re going directly to the Celestine ruins, I think. Maybe we can help save the rest of the Ninth Insight.”

  We bade them good-bye and drove north again.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked after a period of silence.

  Father Sanchez slowed the truck and looked at me. “I’m thinking about Cardinal Sebastian, about what you have said: that he would stop fighting the Manuscript if only he could be made to understand.”

  As Father Sanchez made this statement, my mind wandered into a daydream of actually confronting Sebastian. He was standing in a courtly room looking down at us. At that moment he had the power to destroy the Ninth Insight and we were fighting to make him understand before it was too late.

  When I finished the thought, I noticed Sanchez was smiling at me.

  “What were you seeing?” he asked.

  “I was just thinking of Sebastian.”

  “What was happening?”

  “The image of confronting Sebastian was clearer. He was about to destroy the last insight. We were trying to talk him out of it.”

  Sanchez took a deep breath, “It looks like whether the rest of the Ninth Insight becomes known will depend on us.”

  My stomach drew into a knot at the idea. “What should we say to him?”

  “I don’t know. But we must persuade him to see the positive, to understand that the Manuscript as a whole doesn’t negate but clarifies the truth of the Church. I’m sure the rest of the Ninth Insight does just that.”

  We rode in silence for an hour, seeing no other traffic of any kind. My thoughts raced through the events which had transpired since I’d come to Peru. I knew the Manuscript’s insights had finally merged in my mind into one consciousness. I was alert to the mysterious way my life evolved, as revealed by the First Insight. I knew that the whole culture was sensing this mystery again as well, and we were in the process of constructing a new world vie
w, as pointed out by the Second. The Third and Fourth had showed me that the universe was in reality a vast system of energy and that human conflict was a shortage of and a manipulation for this energy.

  The Fifth Insight revealed that we could end this conflict by receiving an inpouring of this energy from a higher source. For me, this ability had almost become habit. The Sixth, that we could clear our old repeated dramas, and find our true selves, was also permanently etched in my mind. And the Seventh had set in motion the evolution of these true selves: through question, intuition of what to do, and answer. Staying in this magic flow was truly the secret of happiness.

  And the Eighth, knowing how to relate in a new way to others, bringing out in them the very best, was the key to keeping the mystery operating and the answers coming.

  All the Insights had integrated into a consciousness that felt like a heightened sense of alertness and expectation. What was left, I knew, was the Ninth, which revealed where our evolution was taking us. We had discovered some of it. What about the rest?

  Father Sanchez pulled the truck to the side of the road.

  “We’re within four miles of Cardinal Sebastian’s mission,” he said. “I think we should talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t know what to expect but I presume all we can do is drive right in.”

  “How large a place is this?”

  “Large. He has developed this mission for twenty years. He selected this location to serve the rural Indians whom he felt had been neglected. But now students come from all over Peru. He has administrative duties with the church organization in Lima, but this is his special project. He is totally devoted to this mission.”

  He looked directly into my eyes. “Please stay alert. There may come a time when we need to help each other.”