Last spring, twelve million of us tuned into the PBS special, Ancient Prophecies, fascinated by the foreboding visions of Nostradamus, Gordon Michael Scallions, Edgar Cayce and others. Such an impressive consensus makes calamity seem almost inevitable. But James Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy has another vision, one that offers the opportunity to walk a more positive path. According to Redfield, there's still time to avert impending ecological and social catastrophes, if enough of us can actualize the insights he's outlined in his runaway bestseller.

If you're among the shrinking minority who haven't yet read Celestine, it's a magical adventure novel that was written in a waffle house (to give me the sense of a generic audience) and set in the lush, exotic Peruvian Amazon. Though frequently perceived as a true story, Redfield insists that the book is a parable; it's based on my experiences and on the knowledge that's come to me. It's a compilation of my experiences. And though he says the insights are a product of his creative imagination, he firmly believes they are occurring to thousands of us simultaneously, almost on cue, as if we've been programmed to rediscover ancient wisdom long ago lost. Celestine's hero, though an obvious archetype of Redfield himself, is meant to be you and me. And as we make our way through Peru, we have amazing, orderly revelations that lead us from restlessness to full spiritual enlightenment.

The sequential revelations we acquire appear almost too orderly and idealistic. Redfield (who seems to think in images) admits such automatic, linear unfoldment is probably more like a spiral onion. In other words, as we peel through the onion like layers of our psyches, we experience the insights on a particular level. We may then reexperience them on a deeper level as we continue to chip away unreality and self-delusion on our quest for the deeper meaning of life. As the culmination of an ongoing evolution, Redfield sees humanity climbing a collective spiral staircase, ascending ever upward. He acknowledges the existence of ancient, esoteric civilizations who have had the wisdom of the insights, yet feels we are at a unique moment in history to receive them in a mass way. As he puts it, The insights have been around forever, this information has been in esoteric enclaves for centuries, but we are historically set up (with the advent of the global village and mass media) to have the essence of these insights as a culture.

History is a favorite topic with Redfield, opinions seem framed within whatever historical context best illustrates them. In The Celestine Prophecy, our view of history is the subject of the second insight (the first having shown us the importance of seeming coincidences); we are taught to see history and our particular place in time in terms of millennia rather than in decades or centuries. Once our perspective is aligned with a more cosmic overview, we are ripe to begin to see auras around people and other living things, which the third insight teaches us. And the lush vegetation of the Peruvian rain forest is just the place to sit in for hours as we practice learning to see invisible energy and then to project it.

Before you jet off to Peru in search of ultimate truth, no, there isn't a manuscript you can lay eyes on. And no, there isn't a magical place like Vicente, the lodge where we learned to see energy around people and plants. But yes, says Redfield, Peru is a country that's enchanted, beautiful and lends itself to the spiritual mystery. You won't, however, find thousands of companions climbing to spiritual summits, for though the country is willing, the people aren't necessarily clamoring for enlightenment en masse. In Peru there's a mixture of old-world Catholicism and what's left of the Incan religions, so people there are maybe more experientially open to the mystery but don't have any more answers than anyone else.

Answers are important, we learn. After mastering the ability to see the energy, the fourth insight shows us that the core of all conflict (personal and global) lies in an unconscious competition for that energy. Then, through the fifth insight, we understand that we can connect with an unlimited, universal source and fill ourselves up, which frees us to find and solve our life questions.

A major tool in our journey towards energetic independence and in discovering and solving our life questions is the conscious realization of our control drama, the particular, unconscious way we learned to manipulate other people in order to get more energy for ourselves, and the subject of the sixth and seventh insights. Influenced by Eric Berne's work (The Games People Play and I'm OK, You're OK), Redfield has neatly labeled a small continuum from aggressive to passive behavior (the Intimidator, the Interrogator, the Aloof and the Poor Me types). Intimidators steal energy by threatening others, Interrogators question and probe with the intent of finding something to criticize, Aloof types retreat and act coyly to attract attention and energy, and Poor Me types make others feel guilty in order to pull energy in.

Once consciously aware of how we learned to manipulate, we're free to reinterpret our family experience from an evolutionary point of view and discover who we really are. The control drama will fall away and our real life script, (high adventure marked by coincidences), can take off. (Imagine Castro, Khaddaffi, the Russian Politburo, CEOs and the rest of us realizing and mending our manipulative ways, changing our diets to include mostly organic grain, fruits and vegetables and respectfully interacting to help others realize answers to their pertinent life questions, receiving in turn the answers to our own.) Such behavior would indicate that we had achieved the goal of the eighth insight, which is to interact in such a way as to further both our own and others growth and evolution.

According to Redfield, answers to life questions come in as clarity; a person can clearly see how their talents and skills seem to be building a picture showing them what to do to make the world a more spiritual place. It just feels like clarity. So, he adds, the questions constantly come in terms of adding to this clarity.

A sociologist with a master's degree in counseling, Redfield is qualified to postulate in the psychological realm. Well schooled in humanistic psychology and the thinking of its forerunners, his speech is peppered with references to synchronicity, Carl Jung's theory of serendipitous meaningful coincidence; he sees the insights as archetypes from the collective unconscious, another pillar of Jungian psychology. It is perhaps this archetypal, mythical aspect of the book that has piqued the interest of people from every walk of life and has us passing it from hand to hand, staying up all night to finish it and using it as a study guide in church groups. There is something very basic here, something generic and nontechnical that forms a natural bridge between Eastern philosophy, Native American/Shamanistic wisdom, Western religion and the Corporate world. Collectively, we sense the critical mass that's building and at some level want to ensure the impending explosion will propel us into a brighter rather than a darker future. We want to know the meaning of life, why we're here, what our unique life mission is.

Once a youth counselor, James Redfield's mission has evolved to helping the whole of humanity lock into positive archetypes and find answers to life questions. Like many seekers of spiritual wisdom, he shuns formal organizations (as he also shuns being called a prophet or guru). Though raised a Methodist and respectful of tradition, his hope lies in the individual. Organizations by their very nature, whether scientific or religious, are obsolete. They're sort of a distribution point of old information. The artists and poets and real explorers are already pulling something new together even while the intellectuals are distributing what's already been found. None of us is exempt from that process. We all have to get past our old way of looking at things before we can really find the truth.

But how do we look with new eyes at the seemingly overwhelming socio-economic and ecological problems facing us? Isn't this uplifting prophecy overly simplistic and hopelessly idealistic in the face of such daunting ills as AIDS, riots, pollution and escalating violence? Redfield remains undaunted, confident that the positive psychological contagion that's emerging will continue to spread. We're going to have more and more alternative community models as people discover their own mission or way of contributing. We're going to have all kinds of solutions to the energy, pollution and social problems.

Such a model is one constructed by the 130 residents of Gaviotas, an alternative community located in a tropical region of Colombia. Its government is a nonprofit foundation; housing, healthcare and food are free. There is no crime; there are no police, statutes or ordinances. Known for innovative technology, energy sources include windmills, solar panels adapted for rainy climates, pedal power and, ingeniously, kid power. Seesaws at the preschool utilize the exuberance of childhood to pump clean water into the community. The food chain is respected and utilized. Feeding cattle walk over a specially designed floor which slides cow-pies down to a receptacle where natural decomposition helps make a dung soup. Rich with methane, the soup is converted to power and fuel for use by the local hospital , a building that has been named by a prominent Japanese architect as one of the 40 most important in the world.

In this important building, patients lie in hammocks suspended from wooden beams while friends and relatives tend vegetables in the greenhouse wing. A unique underground air-conditioning system utilizes north facing intakes to catch the breeze, while photo voltaic cells on the roof run the pump and provide power for solar pressure cookers.

The inhabitants of Gaviotas have yet another unique accomplishment , they have successfully begun replenishing their rain forest. Using pines from Honduras which thrive on thin soil, they have created a protective environment for over 40 indigenous trees that have lain dormant in the moist undersoil, trees which are beginning to rise again. It is in just such forests (particularly in virgin forests on mountain tops) that Celestine prophecy predicts the majority of us will one day choose to live.

The Celestine path is one of personal responsibility. We have to be willing to stop giving our power away by blaming others or depending on socialized programs to take care of us, considering instead the preventive methods of self-discipline in diet and fitness, the monitoring of our own health and the choosing of appropriate caregivers when we need help.

While in Peru, by the way, you and I don't exercise. Oh, we walk some, but there aren't any aerobics classes, and no mention is made of daily physical regimen. Though he does some personalized Tai Chi and his wife, Salle, is a former massage therapist, Redfield seems more enthusiastic about traveling to sacred sites and reenergizing by sitting in power spots. He is reputed to have been led to a personal power site by a crow circling him twice while in Sedona, Arizona, and having had a transcendent meditative experience much like the one we have in the book (where we grasp all of evolution and sense ourselves as the eyes of the universe looking out upon itself).

The enormity of the health care issue illustrates the need for change not only in the field itself but in the financial realm as well. Redfield sees decentralization as a key to solving the crisis and predicts: Health care needs change when people refuse to take some of the treatments that cost so much and seek doctors who utilize more holistic and spiritually oriented health procedures. That will solve the health-care crisis. We have to be very careful about giving our authority to huge government bodies in the name of somehow helping the little guy.

The ninth insight discusses the changes Redfield envisions for the emerging culture. By the middle of the next millennium, he says, our needs will be completely met without the exchange of any currency and that once we begin to give constantly, we will always have more coming in than we could possibly give away. He affirms that we will have moved from the stage of finding our right livelihood and be entering the stage of getting paid for evolving freely and offering our unique truth to others. And he's certainly paving the way. He and his wife, Salle, offer seminars, a monthly newsletter (The Celestine Journal) which chronicles his present experiences and reflections, and personalized astrological reports. Redfield observes that the world constantly reflects back on itself, and sees astrology as just one more way of exploring synchronistic messages, like the I Ching or the Tarot cards. Astrology is one of the greatest synchronistic mysteries.

The final word is yet to come. Redfield is working on an eagerly awaited sequel which will offer a tenth insight.

As we spiral our way through, insight by insight, it may be wise to keep the more dire of the ancient prophecies in the background of our consciousness. For each of us has a major part in determining the outcome of the great drama taking place, as Redfield acknowledges; All psychic prophecies give us a picture of what's possible and probable, but things change after the prophecy is uttered. I believe there is a path of positive shift out there waiting for us. We can still walk that path; California does not have to fall into the ocean. But we have to make history conscious. We have to move from assuming that history is going to be just like the past to actually envisioning the future that we see ourselves walking. Enough of us have to visualize a positive outcome in order for that to take place. Otherwise there are lots of natural and ecological disasters just awaiting us. It does truly depend on us