FICTION

THE CELESTINE PROPHECY: An Adventure by James Redfield (Warner: $17.95; 246 pp.) Heaven is real. It’s right here, only we can’t see it. Not yet. That’s what James Redfield says. Picking up where Harmonic Convergence (HC) mercifully left off, Redfield would have us believe that a “spiritual renaissance” is imminent, a new world order based on love, trust, beauty, rapture, old-growth forests . . . good things like that. When? Well, the year 2000 is at hand. Something about those zeros elicits hope, a cleansing, sort of a New Millenium Resolution--all of which the world could use. The trouble is, AD 2000 is an arbitrary number, man-made, just as significant as 1748, say (or better, 1996: Jesus was born in 4 BC). Never mind.

While HC was based on the Mayan calendar, Redfield’s New Age centers about “The Manuscript,” written in 600 BC and only now coming to light. Its “Ten Insights” are scattered about Peru (nobody says why). As the Insights are unearthed (conveniently in numerical order) their Wisdom is revealed. Such action in a book that’s 95% exegesis is provided by a handful of gutty little philosopher/scientists racing to find the Truth before the enemy does. The enemy is the Peruvian government, led by the clergy who want “The Manuscript” suppressed: a matter of unemployment. And what is revealed? That there is no such thing as coincidence; that beauty is truth, truth beauty. That we can improve crops by thought-projection. “Humans,” says Redfield, “are carrying forth the universe’s evolution toward higher vibrational complexity.” Apropos, the Mayans didn’t disappear, they vibrated themselves into a new dimension. No kidding.