The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure

by James Redfield

  “Look, there!” Sanchez said, pointing toward the more distant pyramid.

  A lone figure was sitting in front of the structure. As we walked that way, I noticed an increase in my energy level. By the time we reached the center of the paved area I felt incredibly energized. I looked at Sanchez and he raised an eyebrow. When we got closer I recognized the person by the pyramid to be Julia. She sat cross-legged and held several papers in her lap.

  “Julia,” Sanchez called.

  Julia turned and stood up. Her face seemed iridescent.

  “Where is Wil?” I asked.

  Julia pointed to her right. There, perhaps a hundred yards away was Wil. He seemed to be glowing in the fading twilight.

  “What is he doing?” I asked.

  “The Ninth,” Julia replied, holding the papers toward us. Sanchez told Julia that we had seen some of the insight, the part which foretold of a human world transformed by conscious evolution.

  “But where does this evolution take us?” Sanchez asked.

  Julia didn’t answer. She just held up the papers in her hand, as though she expected us to read her mind.

  “What?” I asked.

  Sanchez reached over and touched my forearm. His look reminded me to stay alert and to wait.

  “The Ninth reveals our ultimate destiny,” Julia said. “It makes it all crystal clear. It reiterates that as humans, we are the culmination of the whole of evolution. It talks about matter beginning in a weak form and increasing in complexity, element by element, then species by species, always evolving into a higher state of vibration.

  “When primitive humans came along, we continued this evolution unconsciously by conquering others and gaining energy and moving forward a little bit, and then being conquered ourselves by someone else and losing our energy. This physical conflict continued until we invented democracy, a system that didn’t end the conflict but shifted it from a physical to a mental level.

  “Now,” Julia went on, “we’re bringing this whole process into consciousness. We can see that all of human history has prepared us to achieve conscious evolution. Now, we can increase our energy and experience the coincidences consciously. This carries evolution onward at a faster pace, lifting our vibrations even higher.”

  She hesitated for a moment, looking at each of us, then repeated what she had said, “Our destiny is to continue to increase our energy level. And as our energy level increases, the level of vibration in the atoms of our bodies increases.”

  She hesitated again.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” Julia said, “that we are getting lighter, more purely spiritual.”

  I looked at Sanchez. He was focused intensely on Julia.

  “The Ninth Insight,” Julia continued, “says that as we humans continue to increase our vibration, an amazing thing will begin to happen. Whole groups of people, once they reach a certain level, will suddenly become invisible to those who are still vibrating at a lower level. It will appear to the people on this lower level that the others just disappeared, but the group themselves will feel as though they are still right here—only they will feel lighter.”

  As Julia talked I noticed her face and body changing somewhat. Her body was taking on the characteristics of her energy field. Her features were still clear and distinct but it was no longer muscles and skin at which I was looking. She looked as though she were made of pure light, glowing from within.

  I looked at Sanchez. He appeared the same way. To my amazement, everything appeared this way: the pyramids, the stone under our feet, the surrounding forest, my hands. The beauty I was able to perceive had increased beyond anything I had experienced before, even when on the ridge top.

  “When humans begin to raise their vibrations to a level where others cannot see them,” Julia continued, “it will signal that we are crossing the barrier between this life and the other world from which we came and to which we go after death. This conscious crossing over is the path shown by the Christ. He opened up to the energy until he was so light he could walk on water. He transcended death right here on Earth, and was the first to cross over, to expand the physical world into the spiritual. His life demonstrated how to do this, and if we connect with the same source we can head the same way, step by step. At some point everyone will vibrate highly enough so that we can walk into heaven, in our same form.”

  I noticed Wil was walking slowly toward us. His movements seemed unusually graceful, as though he was gliding.

  “The Insight says,” Julia went on, “that most individuals will reach this level of vibration during the third millennium, and in groups consisting of the people with whom they are most connected. But some cultures in history have already achieved the vibration. According to the Ninth Insight, the Mayans crossed over together.”

  Julia abruptly stopped talking. From behind us, we heard muffled voices in Spanish. Dozens of soldiers were entering the ruins, coming right for us. To my surprise I was unafraid. The soldiers continued to walk in our general direction but strangely not directly toward us.

  “They can’t see us!” Sanchez said. “We’re vibrating too highly!”

  I looked again at the soldiers. He was right. They were walking twenty or thirty feet to our left, completely ignoring us.

  Suddenly we heard loud shouts in Spanish by the pyramid to our left. The soldiers closest to us stopped and ran in that direction.

  I strained to see what was happening. Another group of soldiers were emerging from the forest holding the arms of two other men. Dobson and Phil. The sight of their capture jolted me, and I could feel my energy level plummet. I looked at Sanchez and Julia. Both were staring intently toward the soldiers and appearing equally disturbed.

  “Wait!” Wil seemed to shout from the opposite direction. “Don’t lose your energy!” I felt the words as well as heard them. They were slightly garbled.

  We turned to see Wil walking quickly toward us. As we watched he seemed to say something else, but this time the words were completely unintelligible. I realized I was having trouble focusing. His image was becoming hazy, distorted. Gradually, as I stared in disbelief, he disappeared altogether.

  Julia turned to face Sanchez and me. Her energy level seemed lower but she was completely undaunted, as though whatever just happened clarified something.

  “We weren’t able to maintain the vibration,” she said. “Fear lowers one’s vibration tremendously.” She looked toward the spot where Wil had faded from view. “The Ninth Insight says that while some individuals may cross over sporadically, a general rapture will not occur until we have abolished fear, until we can maintain a sufficient vibration in all situations.”

  Julia’s excitement grew. “Don’t you see? We can’t do it yet but the role of the Ninth Insight is to help create that confidence. The Ninth Insight is the insight of knowing where we are headed. All the other insights create a picture of the world as one of incredible beauty and energy, and of ourselves as increasing our connection with and thus seeing this beauty.

  “The more beauty we can see, the more we evolve. The more we evolve, the higher we vibrate. The Ninth Insight shows us that ultimately, our increased perception and vibration will open us up to a Heaven that is already before us. We just can’t see it yet.

  “Whenever we doubt our own path, or lose sight of the process, we must remember what we are evolving toward, what the process of living is all about. Reaching heaven on Earth is why we are here. And now we know how it can be done … how it will be done.”

  She paused momentarily, “The Ninth mentions that a Tenth Insight exists. I think it must reveal …”

  Before she could finish, a burst of machine-gun fire ripped up the stone tiles by our feet. We all dived to the ground, our hands raised. No one spoke as the soldiers came and confiscated the papers and took each of us in a different direction.

  The first weeks after my capture were spent in constant terror. My energy level fell dramatically as one militar
y officer after another questioned me threateningly about the Manuscript.

  I played the dumb tourist and claimed ignorance. After all, it was true that I had no idea who among the other priests had copies, or how widespread public acceptance of the document had become. Gradually, my tactic worked. Over time the soldiers seemed to grow tired of me and passed me on to a group of civilian authorities, who took a different approach.

  These officials sought to convince me that my trip to Peru had been crazy from the beginning, crazy because according to them the Manuscript never really existed. They argued that the insights had in fact been invented by a small group of priests with the intent to foster rebellion. I had been duped, these officials told me, and I let them talk.

  After a while, the conversations became almost cordial. Everyone began to treat me as a guiltless victim of this plot, as a gullible Yankee who had read too many adventure tales and found himself lost in a foreign country.

  And because my energy was so low, I possibly would have become vulnerable to this brainwashing, had something else not occurred. I was suddenly transferred from the military base where I was being held to a governmental compound near the airport in Lima—a compound in which Father Carl was also being detained. The coincidence brought back some of my lost confidence.

  I was walking in the open courtyard when I first saw him sitting on a bench, reading. I strolled over, restraining my exuberance and hoping I wouldn’t attract attention from the officials inside the building. When I sat down, he looked up at me and grinned.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

  “You have?”

  He put down his book, and I could see the delight in his eyes.

  “After Father Costous and I came to Lima,” he explained, “we were immediately detained and separated, and I’ve been here in custody ever since. I couldn’t understand why, nothing seemed to be happening. Then I began to think repeatedly of you.” He gave me a knowing look. “So, I figured you would show up.”

  “I’m grateful you’re here,” I said. “Did anyone tell you what happened at the Celestine ruins?”

  “Yes,” Father Carl replied. “I spoke briefly with Father Sanchez. He was held here for a day before being taken away.”

  “Is he all right? Did he know what happened to the others? And what about him? Were they going to imprison him?”

  “He had no information about the others, and as for Father Sanchez, I don’t know. The government’s strategy is to methodically search out and destroy all copies of the Manuscript. Then to treat the whole affair as a grand hoax. We’ll all be thoroughly discredited, I imagine, but who knows what they will ultimately do with us.”

  “What about Dobson’s copies,” I said, “the First and Second Insights he left in the States?”

  “They already have them,” Father Carl replied. “Father Sanchez told me that agents of the government found out where they were hidden and stole them. Apparently Peruvian agents have been everywhere. They knew about Dobson from the beginning, and about your friend, Charlene.”

  “And you think when the government is through, no copies will remain?”

  “I think it will be a miracle if any survive.”

  I turned away, feeling my new-found energy diminish.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Father Carl asked.

  I looked at him but said nothing.

  “This means,” he continued, “that each of us must remember exactly what the Manuscript said. You and Sanchez didn’t convince Cardinal Sebastian to release the Manuscript, but you delayed him long enough for the Ninth Insight to be understood. Now it has to be communicated. You have to be involved in communicating it.”

  His statement made me feel pressured and my Aloof drama activated inside me. I leaned against the back of the bench and looked away, which made Father Carl laugh. Then, at just that moment, we both realized several embassy officials were watching us from an office window.

  “Listen,” Father Carl said quickly. “From now on the insights will have to be shared between people. Each person, once they hear the message and realize that the insights are real, must pass on the message to everyone who is ready for it. Connecting with energy is something humans have to be open to and talking about and expecting, otherwise the whole human race can go back to pretending that life is about having power over others and exploiting the planet. If we go back to doing this, then we won’t survive. Each of us must do what we can to get this message out.”

  I noticed that the two officials were out of the building walking toward us.

  “One more thing,” Father Carl said, speaking lowly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Father Sanchez told me Julia had spoken of a Tenth Insight. It hasn’t yet been found and no one knows where it might be.”

  The officials were almost on us.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Father Carl continued, “that they’re going to release you. You may be the only one that can look for it.”

  The men suddenly interrupted our conversation and escorted me toward the building. Father Carl smiled and waved and said something else but I could only half pay attention. As soon as Father Carl had mentioned a Tenth Insight, I had been consumed by a thought of Charlene. Why was I thinking of her? How was she connected to a Tenth Insight?

  The two men insisted that I pack the few things I had left and follow them to the front of the Embassy and into a state vehicle. From there I was taken directly to the airport and up to a boarding concourse, where one of them smiled faintly and looked at me from behind thick glasses.

  His smile faded as he handed me a passport and a ticket for a flight to the United States … then told me in a heavy Peruvian accent to never, never return.