This book by James Redfield tells of an adventure in which he, or at least the protagonist of the story, persues the key insights of an ancient manuscript.

The manuscript was purportedly written in Aramaic circa 600 B.C. and discovered among Mayan ruins in Peru (strange, since the Mayans didn't speak this language or have known contact with any culture that did). This was supposed to be a closely guarded secret due to pressures placed upon the government by the Church there, and all translations of the document have been seized.

Nonetheless, Redfield presents 9 key "insights" in the manuscript that describe the vibrational energy of the universe, our human connectiveness to this energy, and our ongoing evolution toward harmony with this energy that will eventually allow us to "tap" into it.

The purported manuscript has Biblical references (indirectly predicting the birth of Christ, and it was written in the language of the OT) and the book has archeologic ones (Mayan ruin, "Celestine" ruins). There have been millions of copies sold, but there is very little mention of it that I could find on the Sec Web.

Is the existence of such a manuscript debated in archeologic academia? Are they any critical reviews of this book? It mentions specific scientists (purportedly all in Peru at the same time Redfield was researching the manuscript) such as Wayne Dobson of NYU, Wilson James, "Professor Hains" of Wayne State, Phil Stone of USC; does anyone know if these guys exist?

Thanks, Rick



[This message has been edited by rbochnermd (edited May 21, 2001).]

AFAIK, the Celestine Prophesy is a work of fiction, much like Carlos Castenada's work.

So it's ALL fiction? No claim of authenticity other than New Ageism?

I think I just answered my own questions:

http://kenneth.moyle.com/cp/

Rick

Single dad. what the hell does AFAIK mean?

all free ale in kitchen?

Something that bugs the living Scheiße out of me every time i come across that acronym and waste minutes in deciphering it.

Put me out of my misery.

By the way, reading celestine prophecy is more fun than a 30 minute roller coaster- However, once the friend who loaned it to me took it seriously and rebuked me for my skeptical outlook, i was suddenly reminded of my mortal enemies- jesus freaks. Nowadays we have new age freaks. New clothing, same person. I bid her thanks for the story of fiction.

~WiGGiN~

Toto

AFAIK = as far as I know

Do not confuse the jesus freaks with the new-agers. I have been fighting against Christianity since I was about 7 years old, and yet I am part of the New Age movement. I am nothing like them.

Thinker, you have my deepest sympathies.

New age, old age, it's all the same to me.

Lazy generalization, to be sure, but if the shoe fits...

Explain to me what is the difference and show me why am i wrong in lumping people of different faiths into one mixing bowl?

I'd be happy to hear you out.

~Speaker 4 the death of God~

Well, I'm not a "New Ager," but some of the differences between them and "Jesus freaks" is that the former don't threaten you with eternal torment if you don't accept their beliefs, and they don't have a bloody history nor a violent present.

Rick

Well, because they really aren't all the same. The real problems are caused by 'faiths' which claim a monopoly on absolute truth. Specifically this is a problem because there are several of them and their versions of absolute truth are at loggerheads, resulting in the sort of chaos we are witnessing in Jerusalem, as well as the idiotic creationists trying to rewrite science textbooks in Alabama classrooms. I hate Christianity, Judaism and Islam for these reasons. Any objective thinker must conclude that they are all wrong, and that belief in them damages society and damages individuals. I do not accept that this applies to the New Age movement, which is a very diverse group of people including everyone from the healing-crystal/astrology believers to well respected physicists and philosophers. I take a dim view of the healing-crystal/astrology types, although in comparison to monothiests they are harmless. My own views are driven by a belief that mathematics is self-existing, that physical reality is not physical but is (like our minds) composed of 'information', and that this 'information' exists like a multi-dimensional fractal within my mathematical 'God'.

I am a scientist at heart. I look first to science to find my answers. I eventually concluded that there are some areas that science is incapable of touching - specifically "Why does the Universe bother to exist at all?" and "What is my consciousness/mind?" There is a perfectly good case to be made that empirical science cannot ever answer these questions and thus one can be justified in searching for answers elsewhere - everywhere else in fact. Even before I considered myself to be associated with 'new-agism' I believed that these two questions may have interrelated answers, and that the existence of conscious life and the existence of the Universe must be considered together. This is a uniting factor in the New Age movement, as well as the older parents of it - such as Buddhism, Taoism and various forms of Pantheism - not that I knew anything about these things before I arrived at this place.

Basically I came up with my own philosophy based on mathematics being absolute, materialism having no foundation, everything being composed of information and all of it contained within Zero which I see as an infinity containing all things rather than nothing. I must stress that I have no formal education in philosophy, psychology or theology and my total knowledge about these subjects when I came here was almost nothing. When I found this place I started posting about this personal philosophy and rapidly discovered that I was going to be attacked (viciously) by materialist atheists and supported (totally to my surprise) by Buddhists. Thus I ended up classified along with the mystics by default - that I had mystical beliefs that had come entirely from within myself, and only discovered the links with mysticism afterwards. It might be classed as faith, but it is not the blind faith of Christianity - because it is based on logic and can be defended. It is also not absolute - it can change in the light of new evidence or new understanding. And since your average atheists will not even attempt to give a decent answer to either of the questions my 'mysticism' answers I don't really understand why they should complain about my attempts at answering them.

It has become increasingly obvious to me over the last year that my beliefs are in line with the New Age movement, and this incudes the celestine prophecy - a book which I refused to read before my 'atheistic religious conversion', and which I have only had a quick look at now. Probably the most important thing about this book is its references to Jungian synchronicities. These are also important to me since at the time of my 'conversion' I was subject to a string of very significant synchronicities directly related to my search for Truth. And I don't mean a couple of slightly odd co-incidences - I mean loads of highly significant co-incidences occuring in rapid succession - to the point where I could no longer ignore them. I knew nothing about Jung until I mentioned to somebody that lots of weird co-incidences were happening to me at the time. I types 'Jung +synchronicity' into my browser this is what came out (please ignore the reference to the zodiac in the URL) :

http://www.thezodiac.com/mundus3.htm

Make of it what you will.