THIS WORD

Birmingham Native, Purveyor of New Age "Insights"

By Ulysses L. Griffin
November 28, 1999

A resident from the Shelby county area has apparently become a source of enlightenment for thousands across America and the entire world. Born on March 19, 1950, his name is James Redfield and his book is "The Celestine Prophecy" which purports to give knowledge of nine spiritual "insights" which have been kept purposefully hidden. It was originally self-published in 92’, and then by Time Warner in 94’ and was the #1 international bestseller in 96’and #2 in ‘95. It remained over three years on the New York Times bestseller list, and to this very day stays at the top of best-seller lists and really is indicative of the rise of interest of the public in this area of ideology. In 96’ it was joined by Redfield’s sequel "The Tenth Insight", which immediately was a best seller. Together, the books spent 74 weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, making him the bestselling hardcover author in the world in ’96 as reported in BP Report, issue dated January 13, 1997.

So, how does a man from the Birmingham area become such a world wide voice of New Age ideology? His biography from his website(www.celestinevision.org) states that he was "Brought up in a Methodist Church that was loving and community-oriented, he was nevertheless frustrated by a lack of answers to his questions about the true nature of spiritual experience." Also, as a young man at Auburn university, he studied eastern religious philosophies such as Taoism and Zen, and achieved a degree in sociology and master’s degree in counseling. For 15 years he counseled abused teenagers and became involved in the human potential movement, when he saw that psychic and mystical experiences began to help his patients.

It becomes apparent that his rejection of Christianity as an incompetent system, his deep learning of eastern mysticism and involvement in psychic activities helped form the belief system of Redfield, and no doubt were influential in the writing of his books. One can easily see his rejection of Christianity in the books, for Christian leaders in the books are the ones which are attempting to keep the so-called "insights" from the attention of the public; in essence the organized Church leaders have known these "insights", however, have kept them secret. In other words, the church’s stranglehold on the truth must be relinquished, and these insights must be known by the public.

Redfield’s philosophy may seem new to some, but the fact of the matter is, is that it is not. The philosophy spoken of in his books are nothing more than another propagation of the 1800’s Theosophical ideology. Redfield does exactly what Theosophy does: it rejects traditional Christianity and combines eastern mysticism with western science and psychology, and wraps it all up in christian terms so that americans would easily accept it as just another form or the "true" teachings of Christ.

Don’t be deceived by such trickery. Keep your eyes open and drop Redfield’s books like a hot potato.