All About the Mayans

A Questionable Quest

In Redfield's bestseller, The Celestine Prophecy, we are told about a mysterious manuscript, found in Peru, that portends to offer numbered insights into the meaning of life. The "First Insight" concerns events that appear to be coincidental, but are actually the result of the power of the mind; thought becomes reality. Not an original concept, still, I found it interesting that a number of "coincidental" events brought me to this book.

The Celestine Prophecy first came to my attention in 1994 when an editor compared my manuscript for "Place of Mirrors" (a novel about the ancient Maya) to The Celestine Prophecy". Distracted by the usual confusions of daily life, I never got around to running out to my local bookstore and eventually, I forgot about both the book. It wasn't until several months later that I noticed the title in a book club mailing and ordered it. Strangely enough, my book club never shipped The Celestine Prophecy. Instead, the novel found its way to me as a Christmas present from my son.

At long last, I would find out about this book that had gained so much attention. I eagerly pored over the first few chapters, but it was soon apparent that The Celestine Prophecy was simply an effort to present New Age philosophy in a palatable form, by packaging it within a "quest". The ideas presented were hardly original, and I found the story enveloping those ideas seriously lacking in the promised "narrative drive". Losing interest, I put the book aside and probably would have never picked it up again were it not for a letter that appeared in my e-mail some time later. Quite "coincidentally, " someone had read The Celestine Prophecy and searched eWorld's member profiles for people interested in the Maya, to send them this question: "Do you know whether the references to the Maya in The Celestine Prophecy have any historical or archeological basis?" Being what I consider somewhat of an expert on the Maya, I was now compelled to go back to finish the book, since I hadn't noticed any references to the Maya in the few chapters I'd read.

So motivated, I wadded through The Celestine Prophecy. Because the references to the Maya don't occur until the final chapter, I had to finish the entire saga. By then I had plenty of fuel for a less then complimentary critique. The basic philosophical message presented here is a conglomeration and over-simplification of new age spiritual teachings and modern psychology. At the risk of sounding like one of the "Intimidator" characters Redfield describes in the book, I have a problem with the way these ideas were presented. The ridiculous references to the Maya, as well as the fact that an ancient manuscript, written in Aramaic, is found in Peru, tells me that Redfield failed to do his homework.

Consider the manuscript. We are never offered an explanation for its Babylonian script. My guess is that Redfield originally described the manuscript as an Inca text until he was enlightened to the fact that the ancient Peruvians didn't have a written language. He could have made the manuscript Mayan, because the Maya had a complex written language and, although we know of only a few codices that survived the purges of the conquistadors, the possibility that a Spanish priest or fortune hunter squirreled away a Maya manuscript in Peru is at least plausible. Since epigraphers have now become proficient at deciphering the Mayan glyphs, translating would not have created an insurmountable problem in The Celestine Prophecy....