James Redfield, An Author For Our Times
Interviewed by Marina Phillips
Bestselling author, James Redfield, knows about timely intuitive guidance. He self-published and sold 100,000 copies of his first book, ‘The Celestine Prophecy’, out of the trunk of his car before Warner Books finally agreed to publish it.
The book spent over 3 years on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has since become a household name.
Redfield followed up his 1993 adventure with ‘The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision’ in 1996, and ‘The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight’ in 1999.
After almost thirteen years, the fourth and final installment of the Celestine Series was published last month. ‘The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision’ is perhaps Redfield’s most clear and engaging work to date.
We caught up with James Redfield on his current literary tour:
Marina Phillips: What is ‘The Twelfth Insight’ about? James Redfield: The book points to a new clarity humanity is reaching about living a deeper, more spiritual life. We’re taking all the abstract knowledge we’ve acquired during the last decades, and integrating it into a life we can live at the individual level. This is happening across all religions and cultures, and it’s happening right now.
MP: What inspired you to write this book? JR: It’s taken a long time, but I became convinced that all the conflict and corruption in the world was creating a counter-trend of authentic searching, and an urge to make the world better. Out of this urge has come the secret of an “authentic spirituality” that is immediately life changing.
MP: There are many prophecies about the year 2012. How does this book clarify this discussion? JR: There is a confluence of prophecy about this time period and the Mayan Calendar is one of them. The best scholarship shows us that this calendar is indeed prophetic, but it’s not forecasting the end of the world. It’s a prediction of a ninth wave of creation, a unity consciousness, and we can already detect this wave in our lives because “unity” is exactly what it feels like.
MP: Your novel shows characters sustaining a spiritual experience called ‘synchronicity’. What are they doing? JR: We’re moving from the sporadic experience of Synchronicity to having a flow of these mysterious coincidences that help us solve problems and lead to the discovery of our soul’s mission.
MP: Synchronicity is leading your characters through a process called integration. Could you please describe it? JR: We are discovering a level of spirituality that feels as though we get clearer and clearer about life as we are integrating a larger consciousness. The new book is a journey, an adventure, exploring this process.
