By Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan
Edited December 11, 2009
Updated April 4, 2012
Original title: Theological Forum on Celestine Prophecy
for Phoenix Educator’s Journal 1996

The Celestine Prophesy series of James Redfield has reached the 12th Insight.  It started the first nine insights with  in 1995 and it has escalated to the Twelfth Insight in Redfield’s 2011publication.  The now renowned  Mayan Manuscript that dated back to the early civilization in Peru has stirred many unsuspecting publics with fear and horror that the end of the world is coming.  Written in Aramaic, the language of the Old Testament, the said Manuscript intuitively invites the reader to connect the teachings of Christ with the Celestine Insights.  This review is an attempt to do just that.

While the Manuscript is silent on the role of Christ in history, it in fact endorses how every person fulfills the redemptive act of Christ by becoming a higher perfect being – a new creation, the culmination of evolution.  Celestine Insights on human force, love, and energy ultimately directs the reader to the New Commandment of Christ which revolutionized ‘the eye for an eye’ tradition.

The Celestine Prophesy heralds the fulfillment of the New Commandment, ushering an era of spiritual renaissance in the 21st century.

The following presentation is my dialogue with various writers whom I encountered in my research for the past 35 years.  They are von Balthazar, Gabriel Moral, Paul Tillich, James Ebner, Schleck, Gregory Baum, Teilhard de Chardin, and Langdon Gilkey.  Their ideas will help the reader interpret the Insights of the Celestine Prophecy from a non-traditional Catholic perspective.

1. The Celestine Evolution

Hudtohan: My research on integration of religion and guidance and counseling was in search for the holy in the profane and the Christian in mundane activities of the teachers and counselors.  I concluded that teaching and counseling are tools for human perfection, means for students and counselees to become better human persons. The Celestine Prophecy pursues similar goals of the noble profession of the teaching and counseling.  It advances the notion that every person is bound for a glorious experience of life; after all, every person is the crowing glory of the long process of evolution.

Redfield: The Ninth Insight reveals our ultimate destiny.  It reiterates that as humans, we are, thus far, the culmination of the evolutionary process. It deals with matter taking form and in increasing complexity, element by element, then species by species, always evolving into higher state of vibration.  Our destiny is to continue to increase our energy level, getting lighter, more purely spiritual.

Hudtohan: The Celestine Prophecy reopens the evolution box of Pandora.  At the time of Charles Darwin, the Church rejected his conclusion on the grounds that the spirit could never evolve from matter. Teilhard de Chardin’s paleontological investigation and his theological acumen led him to Christianize the concept of evolution. He pointed out that Christ’s redemptive action is operative in all of creation from beginning [Alpha] and end [Omega] of time, making all things new, sacred and holy.

Darwinian, Chardinian, and Celestinian concepts of evolution all suggest how divine action makes perfect and holy all of creation, including all of humanity.  All humans, after all, were made to the ‘image and likeness of God.’

Charismatic renewal groups boldly proclaim divine presence on earth through the Spirit of the Living the God.  The movement has ushered in the era of spiritual empowerment of humanity.

Celestine’s Insight of humans becoming ‘more purely spiritual’ matches the biblical description of man as ‘a little less than the angel.’  The Insight continues to say that in the 21st millennium a critical mass of spiritually renewed people will bring about a new of life on earth.

In a quiet way, God’s presence is in the life and movement of all created things and beings, like the slow movement of the earth, like the beat of our heart, like the butterfly effect of the quarks.  After all, it is in Him that we live and move and have our being, according to St. Paul.  God is actively working in us.  For what God is doing through the sacraments in an explicit fashion, He is doing in a more implicit manner through the very words and gestures that every person does in life.

Schleck:  Humanism, which shows an unlimited concern that every person continually discovers truth and becomes what s/he is potentially, is Christianity without all the proper names.

Anthropocentric theology affirms that the vocation to which God calls us is simply to be that person who is on the way to being restored to being fully human. Thus, the accent has changed: before we used to say that the human culminates in being a Christian; now we say the Christian culminates in being human; the true Christian being simply a true person, fully human.

Hudtohan: To be true to our humanity, we have to evolve; we have to change; we have to be transformed.  Schleck believes that the peak of that transformation process is Jesus…the Christ, the New Being of reconciliation, reunion, creativity, meaning and hope.  Jesus is the norm of human existence and the ultimate concern of every human person.

2. The Divine Presence

Hudtohan: The issue here is how God manifests His presence in every person and how that person does is present to God. Openly, scientists are beginning to recognize the spiritual dimension of the human person.

Del Rosario:  combining psychiatry with religion, Peck helps people discover their internal capacity to wellness – a practice which allows the intersection of science, religion and faith. His book, Further along the Road Less Traveled By, deals with self-awareness – the self as intrinsic divinity – the inner world of his or her divinity.

Redfield: The First Insight tells us that we become alert to the mysterious way our lives evolved.  Becoming conscious of the coincidences in our lives and having a hunch or intuition concerning something we want to do or to what happens to us.

Hudtohan: How does God move us?  The Celestine Prophecy suggests coincidences and uneasiness in our present life.  Coincidences are sometimes interpreted as pure luck.  Coincidences are also considered providential.  They in fact are manifestations of divine providence.  Theologically speaking, there is no such thing as coincidence or luck because all events are ordained by God’s will, God’s providence.  Seemingly unrelated pieces of events are not mere coincidences but in fact part of God’s infinite plan.  By nature, a human person controls his/her destiny and environment.  A spiritually transformed person is sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit, being open to what the Spirit is inspiring that person to do.  Thus, inspiration, intuition, discernment, and coincidences are all considered part of His unfathomable wisdom.

Rahner: The First Insight of the prophecy makes one aware of the mysterious ways one’s life evolves.  This is in alignment with the idea of God as mystery present in our lives.  The great mystery, God, remains eternally a mystery in absolute Self-communication as the Infinite, Incomprehensible and Inexpressible being whose name is God, as a Self-giving nearness to every human soul that experiences its own finite emptiness.

Hudtohan: God is communicating to us.  Our human experience is the ground of God’s revelation.  The restlessness we experience and the coincidences happening in our lives are revelatory of God’s own hand stirring our human spirit to action.

Ebner: The stress on mystery present makes it less necessary to visualized a third something between God and humanity.  Presence is immediate, without need to talk of grace and of finding God.  On becoming aware of Presence, which is also known implicitly as truth, suffering, joy, etc. and explicitly as the Holy, each person is invited to say ‘Yes’ to whatever circumstances that person face.

Edwards: When you are feeling bad, you are saying ‘No’ to the gifts of the Universe.  You only feel bad because the Universe is trying to help you.  It is warning you that your current thoughts are short-circuiting your energy flow.  You are disconnecting from Love. You are turning back on your dreams.  Time to turn around.  You are never alone.  The Universe is guiding you in every moment.

Hudtohan: The biblical vision of grace is primarily God’s mercy and love for us, His loving presence reaching out to the very core of our existence.  If there is a God, must not His voice be heard within our experience?  And as we listen, aren’t we invited to discover in our experience the call some great, unexpected mystery?  I am suggesting the presence of God to creatures is a presence that is undeniable. To know our contingency is to know that there is a God on whom our experience is grounded.

3. History and the Lord of Histor

Redfield: The Second Insight says that our culture is sensing this mystery and we are in a process of reconstructing our new world view. History is supposed to provide knowledge of the longer context with which our lives take place.  History is not just the evolution of technology; it is the evolution of our collective thought.

Hudtohan: We ask what the meaning of history is.  What’s the purpose and meaning of our own history: life, death, and suffering? Why am I here?  Why is this happening to me now?

Jasper: The quest for meaning of the whole has become the quest for the meaning of history.  The question of how to experience God has become the question of how we experience God as the meaning of history – in biblical terms, the Lord of History.  The acceptance of history as revelatory means the recognition and appreciation of human personality as openness to God.  There can be no revelation unless the human person is being discovered in relation with God and the human community.  This acceptance of personal history is not only the presupposition of revelation; it is in some way, revelation itself.

4. Divine Presence as Love, Energy and Mystery

Redfield: The Third and Fourth Insights: The universe is in reality a vast system of energy and that human conflict is a shortage of and manipulation for the energy.  We humans, although we are unconscious of it, have the tendency to control and dominate others.  The Fifth Insight reminds us that we could end the conflict by receiving an inpouring of this energy from a higher source.  The universe can provide all our needs if only we are open to it.

Hudtohan: Teilhard de Chardin has his own insight on the presence of God in the universe.

De Chardin: God reveals Himself everywhere beneath our groping efforts, as universal milieu, only because He is the ultimate point upon which all realities converge.  God enfolds and penetrates us by creating and preserving us.  Now let us go a little further.  Under what form and with what end in view, has the Creator given us and still preserving in us, the gift of participative being?  Essentially, the answer is: Our aspiration toward Him as the Omega Point, End Point.

Hudtohan:  Teilhard de Chardin discusses the presence of God in the universe.

Redfield: The Eight Insight is knowing how to relate in a new way to others, bringing out in them the very best. This is the key to keeping the mystery operating and the answers coming.  It describes the whole new ethic governing the way humans should treat each other in order to facilitate everyone’s evolution.  When the energy goes into people, it helps them see their truth.  Then they can give this truth to others.

Ebner: Creation is especially our self-creation, the process whereby we grow toward a ‘yes’ to ourselves, to others, to the mystery.  This means we struggle to remove the obstacles blocking the flow of universal love.  This grace – mystery’s presence as a gift – is rampant in the universe, not captured nor confined in one religion, one church, and even seven sacraments.

Balthazar: Christ’s love is the norm of human existence. Every Christian must ratify his consent fully throughout his life: In all that he is and does, and must try, however effectively, to approximate it existentially.  The same is found in the exhortation of St. Paul: Put on therefore, mercy from the depths of your hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearing one another and forgiving one another…And above all these things put on charity, which binds everything together imperfect harmony (Col. 3: 12-14).

Hudtohan: What do virtues do to us?

Balthazar:  Putting on Christ’s humanity opens man to the infinite and leads him towards a fulfilling unity.  It is essentially form giving, the ultima forma that confers meaning on the whole process of integration.  History as revelatory means the recognition and the appreciation of human personality as the openness to God.  There can be no revelation unless a human person is being discovered in relationship to God and the human community.  It must be perfection of what is truly human… Because God is speaking now to man, every activity that is truly humanizing has an inner relation to Christian revelation…Christian revelation seen from the perspective of its conclusion shows that man is moving toward a transformation which will be emptying out of his egocentricity.

5. Divine Indwelling in Human Personality

Redfield: The Sixth Insight urges us to clear our old repeated childhood dramas to find our true selves.  Clearing the past is a precise process of becoming aware of our individual ways of controlling learned childhood habits [paradigms].  Once we transcend this habit, will find our higher selves, our evolutionary identities.

Hudtohan: There are theories on personal growth and maturity:  Erickson’s eight stages, Freud’s conscious and subconscious structures, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Covey’s seven habits and Buddha’s enlightenment.  They all attempt to map out the ‘evolutionary processes of growth in every person.  Jesus revolutionized human development in His New Commandment of Love.  Celestine’s insight calls for getting rid of our old childhood dramas and finding our true selves.  But how do we find our true selves?

Redfield:  The Seventh Insight directs our attention to certain thoughts that come to us as our guide.  When a thought comes, we must ask ‘why’. Why did this particular thought come now?  How does it relate to my life questions?  The Seventh Insight sets into motion the evolution of the true self: through questions and answers; intuition of what to do. Staying in this magical flow is truly the secret of happiness in life.

Gilkey: affirming God’s presence begins from the existential condition of man who has either experienced the Void or has conquered the Void of fear, anxiety, and sense of contingency.  In one’s ultimate helplessness either idolatry results, where the finite being is raised to the level of the ultimate or the ultimate itself is discovered by the finite being. Thus, faith in a more special sense of an explicit awareness of the ultimate as God is necessarily called forth by the experience of the ultimate Void.

Van Kaam: Religious presence is a mysterious force in the core of my being.  It can be the underlying and integrating principle of unity of my life.  Religious presence gives a new and profound meaning to other ways of living.  Religious presence makes me truly alive in all these other dimensions, though I still transcend them.  It is the secret ground of my peace of heart and mind, the wellspring of joy and courage throughout all adversity.  In this light, personality can be seen as the harmonious integration of all modes of presence which I am at a certain moment of my life.

Moran: All of creation speaks of God and that God is revealed in the letting be of being, that is, in things simply being themselves.

Baum: The word of God is not only recorded in scriptures and proclaimed in the community, it also addresses us through people and the experiences of life itself.  The word of God speaks in human conversation.

6. Divine Universal Presence

Hudtohan: The Jewish concept of divine presence recalls the “Thou” in every moment of depth-relationship with animate and inanimate entities, meaning with people, animals, and things.

Buber:  Every particular Thou is a glimpse to the eternal Thou; by means of every particular Thou, the primary word addresses the eternal Thou.

Streiker: When we respond directly and wholeheartedly to a person in a variety of concrete encounters which fill the life of the authentic, we are addressed by the God of the moment, a moment God.

Tillich: A dialogue done in ‘listening love’ can be a tool of providence, a channel of Divine Spirit.

Hudtohan: Back to Celestine Prophecy.  I believe the writer of the Manuscript is someone whom Karl Rahner would call an Anonymous Christian.  His Insights speak of the presence of mystery, wonder and awe which I recognize in Hasidic Jewish writings and tradition.  The same mystery has also been recognized by James Ebner, Gabriel Moran, Hans Urs von Balthazar, Gregory Baum and Langdon Gilkey as God’s Presence.

Pure transcendence, its concept and experience articulate by humanity, is no longer an exclusive ownership of the Christian mind that discovers earthly, mundane activities elevated by divine grace.  Human activity freed from its downward tendency can be directed as a dynamic activity towards the God of the eternal who, in His own accord is concerned with one’s fulfillment here and now and eternally.

Thus, Christians ought to meet boldly those who do not wish to be Christian because they have a different ‘view of the world.’  However, if they see in them persons who have not yet become what they truly are and have not realized what is in the depths of their lives, that Christian will see in them, Anonymous Christians in whom God’s grace is working in innumerable ways.  They will not call their kindness, love, fidelity of conscience as ‘natural virtues’ but rather think that the grace of Christ is at work even in those who have never expressly invoked it, but who in their inexplicable nameless longing have nevertheless already desired it.  They will see in them persons in whom the unutterable sighs of the Spirit have invoked, requested and accepted the silent mystery which penetrates all human existence.

Ebner:  The new Church model consists of three circles wherein the Christian and Catholic churches are subsumed.  The Human race Church is the primary agency for salvation.  All men are called to God’s kingdom and this is the ordinary means of salvation; it is operating wherever men and women say some kind of ‘yes’ to self, others and the Other. The Christian Church, distinguished by its adherence to the papacy, is not the center of God’s plan, not the ordinary means of salvation.

Hudtohan: Fifty years ago, it was unthinkable to see ordinary Protestants and Catholics join in ecumenical worship. Predominantly Pre-Vatican II attitude would not have allowed it.  In 1999, Don Moen, a Protestant charismatic musical artist succeeded in gathering both denominations to sing and pray at the University of Life Theatre and Recreational Arena (ULTRA) in Pasig City.  As one community with one voice they praised the one Triune God.  That gathering was rehearsal for what is to come: The Second Coming.  It was a glimpse of the Parousia.  The work of redemption is not yet complete. We need to expand the ecumenical circle to a circle that embraces all of humanity.

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