Celestine Prophecy Movie
On the Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show, Kala Ambrose speaks with authors, artists, explorers and researchers, delving into topics of ancient mysteries, metaphysical explorations and new discoveries from science and spiritual arenas. Transcribed here is an interview Kala conducted with James Redfield and his wife Salle Redfield about the book, Celestine Prophecy and the movie Celestine Prophecy. *Special Thanks to TaDa Transcripts for providing the transcript of this audio interview.
KALA: Welcome to the Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show. Our guests tonight are James and Salle Redfield. First came the book, The Celestine Prophecy, then the movie and now comes Celestine Vision, global prayer, all of which we'll tallk about today. Welcome James and Salle to the Show!
JAMES and SALLE: Thank you.
KALA: Wonderful to have you here. Like I mentioned earlier, wonderful to have some southern voices to speak with.
JAMES: We have those for sure.
KALA: Love it. I always like to start with history when we first talk and I’d like to hear from both of you if we could, just how you came to this journey, just how it came to be for you, from whatever part in your life, that you started out and realized you weren’t a human being trying to be spiritual, but rather, like they say, a spiritual being trying to have some human experiences?
JAMES: Well you know I have really been working on the subject matter itself because through graduate school I was very much interested in human potential, where humanity was going and what the current evolution within humanity was. I really got interested in writing a kind of spiritual psychology in graduate school and wrote that for a while and then really looked at it and then said wow this is boring me so what would be better is just to take my experiences and the experiences of other people that I was seeing around me to truly write an adventure tale. You know? Because the concepts are in the experiences. You know? They’re very concrete experiences that define the spiritual path that we’re all out there discovering so you know what happened was that I started working on that and got ahead and almost finished it and met Salle and you know those are very exciting times because then we started to think how can we get this book out.
SALLE: I would say for me it happened when I was about 10 years old I was in a bicycle accident and that knocked me unconscious and I remember having what’s known as a life review and I remember waking up from I guess a little mild coma that I was in and actually having a new understanding of life and it was very difficult for me to communicate because this was in the 1970’s and people just didn’t talk about this kind of thing and then I guess James, when we met, I was reading your manuscript and then parts of the Celestine Prophecies very much connected to my experience and I think that was very affirming and then the rest you know was about helping to get the book out there and developing our website and now the global sphere project.
KALA: I know we use the word divine in a lot of different ways now but I think your book was divinely inspired, the insights, the way everything came together and the synchronicities. I was wondering if you two felt that within yourselves, with your relationship and the way you met. Was that divinely created do you think?
JAMES: Oh sure. I think that we, from my perspective, it was a very timely event. Salle brought a lot of the organizational wisdom around getting the book out and tweaking it to the table and you know lights and bells went off when we met. So, certainly felt destined.
SALLE: You know I also think too we really do plan our lives before we come here then I think in a way our relationship was planned. It was just what we were supposed to do. It just happened naturally and I think it happened quickly too.
JAMES: Yes you know it’s funny because those days and this was you know this was the early 90’s and those days it was a real excitement in the air. It was there was a lot of insights bubbling up to the top of people’s minds and you know the whole concept of the book of course is that we had been and we are moving through a series of insights which are really sort of like clarity aha’s or revelations about what life’s really about, what is the depth of our spiritual experience in this life and there are good times and people are changed by those experiences so my goal was to really put into perspective and maybe help define experiences that we were all having at the same time and I think that’s why the book caught on. People embraced it and passed it along.
KALA: I agree, I think you took some ancient information and become like a modern day philosopher with it, putting it in language people could grasp and understand and work with and that’s very powerful. It’s a wonderful book. I would describe it a classic. I think that it will be around much longer, past our lifetimes.
JAMES: Most people are still passing through those experiences and each generation will have to pass through those experiences to catch up. It’s very exciting stuff and really when we decide to get the book out our philosophy depended on synchronicity. We’d walk into a small bookshop and much of that happened in North Carolina which was really fun. We would just walk into a bookshop and assume that the owner got a copy of the Celestine Prophecy but also anyone who was there, anyone who was in that bookstore also got a copy of the Celestine Prophecy. We felt like they were there. When we walked in it meant that they needed the opportunity to read the book. So it was hefty days and very exciting.
KALA: That’s one of the things too that really excites me and I think teaches in itself ,is both of you are very giving people. You both spend a lot of time doing other things, just good things for the world and giving back and that’s such a powerful teaching tool in itself and it sounds like you’ve always both been that way.
SALLE: Yes, I think we have. I know I have been. James?
JAMES: Well you know it’s just that it’s the most selfish thing you can do because you stay connected you know with a spiritual source that flows through you into the world and brings along with it all these guiding information that helps life go easier. So, that’s one of the insights that we’re learning in the book.
KALA: Yes, and each person, I would think, is in a particular insight for themselves, as they’re learning, but globally would you say that all of us together are centered right now in one insight as compared to another one? Could you pick one if you had to?
JAMES: Well yeah, I think you know that there are three books out, covering you know, the Celestine Prophecy over the first nine, because there is a tenth insight and the third book covered the 11th insight. I think we’re having the 12th insight out there. I’m trying to describe as I write the book about it and I think that we’re all moving into this sort of final AHA about what it takes to really live a deeper spirituality. We have the information we get, we build our lives around certain insights and that information but we’re about to have a kind of synthesis of that deeper experience and deeper spiritual exciting life and that’s where we are I believe. We’re not frustrated, but we’re concerned about the challenges out there in the world and that is causing a kind of determined, new approach to how to live life. That’s bringing forth the best insight.
KALA: I think that’s wonderful. We hear so much talk about 2012 and everyone has a theory or an idea. Do you have any thoughts about that?
SALLE: There is just one thing I wanted to add before we go into 2012 if you don’t mind. It’s I’m seeing people really starting to acknowledge the humanity of each other. I think we’re starting to look at our deeper connection to each other and the whole butterfly effect and realizing that what we do can really uplift someone and change his or her life and James do you think that that’s really more of a twelfth insight?
JAMES: I think that learning to do that and really believing that it works and being determined about really doing that on a daily basis is what’s occurring out there and it’s certainly the keys off course to keep us focused but I believe we really are taking ownership individually of the human evolution out there and pushing it forward on an individual basis and collectively there’s going to be brighter days ahead.
KALA: I agree and that’s an excellent point Salle. We’re all one and I think that’s what you’re saying is we’re starting to connect with that. We have to help each other. Until we get that consciousness, we can’t all move forward.
SALLE: You know, in an odd way what I think really contributed to that is this whole reality show craze that’s been going on the last five years. People have been more exposed. We see their good sides, their bad sides, their emotions and we can relate to some of their stories and their issues. I mean certainly some of them are very far out and none of us can relate to that but I do think that it gave us greater insight to what matters.
KALA: I agree.
JAMES: I think it’s you know it hasn’t happened yet at a political level. You know we still have politicians creating enemies and creating battles and internally at a political level and with each other; politician versus politician, out there in the world. I think that the resolution happens when the politicians really rise to the level of the humanity shared by the peoples out there in their countries.
KALA: That’s very true. You know I think about that, what you both just said and one of the things that is refreshing like Salle said is with reality shows we can see everyone’s human and no matter what we may do in our lives someone else has done something worse.
SALLE: True.
KALA: I wonder in time James with what you’re saying about politicians, if they were allowed to be more real instead of having to have these personas they have to have, almost like they can never do anything wrong, if they could be real people themselves too maybe they would relax more and be able to do the right thing.
JAMES: That’s the secret. Until that happens we really can’t have, they can’t begin to tell the truth.
KALA: Yes.
JAMES: As soon as politicians become brave enough to tell the truth and as we are people everywhere are learning to do that risk telling the truth to a good friend or to a boss and doing that in a way that’s loving and disarming. As soon as politicians can learn to do that, the world will change and very quickly.
KALA: Well if we could just sign Congress up for a reality show, (laughing)
JAMES: You notice there has not been one.
SALLE: That would be very interesting.
KALA: Yes it would. It’s a great idea.
SALLE: Well, I hope you guys will get back to 2012. I didn’t want to shift from that too much because that’s always an interesting topic.
KALA: We’ll shift. I think that’s a good word. Let’s shift it in to 2012. Tell us what you think is going to happen around that.
JAMES: Well, you know there are all these tests out there I think more of those things attempting to break new ground in terms of the spiritual life and live it deeply and one is not to go into fear. Fear is the opposite of love which is the barometer of how it’s spiritually connecting us and to have to stay in love and stay in optimism based on that love. 2012 I believe is just one of those challenges and I do think we probably would have some severe challenges physically on the planet, storms and those kinds of things but I really think there’s a big sort of weight scale, balance scale, out there in the sky and as people buy into it with certain expectations that we’re going to have all of this apocalypse then we’re powerful enough to create that. So I think that were we are now is to learn to manage collectively and individually our creative power out there with our intentions, our beliefs, and our faiths which is of course all the scriptures from all the religions talk about. We do have faith power. We have to marshal that and learn and believe in it but yet also cultivate the right faith projection out there. So I believe that we should be really talking about 2013 and talk about what’s the new most ideal spiritual world we could imagine and what does that look like. What does it look like when we rise to our greatest genius potential, our genius, which is always a spiritual connection? It’s always more intuitive than rational. We have to be rational but its intuitive juice. It’s falling into synchronicity, finding a mission in life, watching it magically unfold. That’s what we have to learn to do and do in order to really create this new ideal world but, we have to start envisioning it now in great detail because that’s what will be on the other side of 2012 and we need to make this a positive experience for the planet.
SALLE: You know I really like that concept of let’s focus on 2013. I think that’s brilliant and it goes along a little bit with what I’ve been reading in Gregg Braden's new book “The Divine Matrix” and his talking about learning to really manifest and put out into the world what we want and to do that by having strong feelings in our bodies about it and really anchoring it in our bodies instead of in our head or just writing it down and visualizing but really focusing upon it and feeling and sensing that interconnectedness and how we can put out positive intent and draw that to us. I think that’s one of the reasons that we’re so interested in the global sphere project because we do want to spread out that energy.
JAMES: I think that what we will see is a lot of ideal presentations in movies and books, certainly what we sought to instill in the Celestine Prophecy movie which is finally available out there in DVD and you know it’s somehow it’s got to have all, we’ve got to have these representations of what it is like and embrace those and live up to those, how to live with this deeper spiritual consciousness and all the juice that comes in with that. So it is synchronicity and it’s the best life we can have and again I think we’re just going to have to embrace the model for it until we all get together on how to do it every day.
KALA: Yes and we can start by doing that today. We don’t have to wait five years from now to change it.
JAMES: It won’t happen until it happens at the individual level.
KALA: Synchronistic - twelth insight and what you were talking about, 2012 it’s kind of interesting.
SALLE: Yes I love it.
JAMES: Well you know it’s just time and everybody out there listening right now knows that they’ve experienced highest connectiveness spiritually or they sense that it’s right around the corner. Well that, holding on to that feeling is what begins to cultivate that real experience. Remember that experience as something important before we go out the door every morning. That’s what we’re doing. That’s the twelfth insight out there in action.
KALA: James you mentioned the movie. Did you imagine this back when you started out and there was the book? Did you imagine it becoming such a bestselling book that one day that there would be a movie?
JAMES: I think we both thought that the book was very timely and that it would eventually reach a lot of people, and people would really pass it along. We always thought that it would be a movie. In the beginning, the problem was going through existing channels with the studios to try and make a movie, because it’s very difficult to sustain a kind of energetic integrity, that in this case was very plurant, because it had the same energy as the book had and it all had to be a visual presentation of it so boy it was hard work to get that you know that pass for the movie and but you know I think selling a book it has that energy. It’s just one model for how it feels to live in this deeper spirituality. Anything that’s conceptual although the concepts are in there but you can see the people changing the way they view and see the world and it becomes a model and a kind of meditation. So, I think we did it the right way we just didn’t realize it was going to be that much hard work.
KALA: That’s probably for the best for everything we do.
JAMES: Maybe.
SALLE: Exactly.
photo: Sally Redfield
KALA: Salle, you were an executive producer of the movie. Is that right?
SALLE: Yes I was.
KALA: What was that like? Tell us about that.
SALLE: You know every day there was something new just being on the set and watching these people do what they do best and one thing I do remember is that often when we watch a movie we really only see the actors doing their part and if you haven’t been on a set I think you may not realize how much effort goes into getting the lighting perfectly, the scene just right or finding the right location so I would say every day was a new learning experience seeing how important the background is to make what’s on screen just look beautiful.
KALA: It was such a wonderful book the way it was so vividly described where I can see it easily lends itself in coming into a movie and I really liked the way you two worked in tandem, James you wrote the book, Salle you were able to produce it and bring your talents together in what I call a balance of a relationship between a couple with the divine feminine and the divine masculine, both of your energies coming together and co-creating in that way. Has it always been that way for you two? Is it easy? Tell us…How wonderful is it?
SALLE: We don’t have to talk about the disagreements. (laughing)
JAMES: Hey it’s wonderfully wonderful when it’s wonderful and you know I think that anyone who’s been in a relationship for a number of years knows that there are these highs and lows and that there are these times when you’ve just got to work out disagreements. Disagreements are fundamentally 'what do we want to do now' kind of disagreements. Should we go in this direction or should we go in another direction as a couple. It’s just a matter of you don’t want to call it compromise but sort of reaching a kind of transcended resolution of the differences.
SALLE: I agree and I think that also because this was really your baby, you know Celestine Prophecy is your book and your work. It was easier for me to defer at certain times. We didn’t completely agree. I could trust his intuition because he knows this more intimately, this project, these ideas than anyone else and there was times when I would just defer and there weren’t many. I think we were pretty much in harmony with most of it. You know it might have been different if it had been my work, my baby, I don’t know but for your work it was that way.
KALA: I think though that’s real what you're describing and that really is with any couple that makes it in this together, it’s not harmony all the time it’s real but then you have your opinion and thoughts about things and it’s communication and working together and that’s what makes a relationship happen and it’s important.
JAMES: You’re right. It’s all about communicating what you’re really feeling and then exploring why because we all have feelings that bubble up and you know and bring frustrations and it’s so hard to know where they’re coming from really and how to resolve whatever is an issue but it’s always a matter of really having patience and letting each person come to their own sort of resolution of the differences and resolution, it’s always a kind of self correction that people make. If the other person told them that or the spirit that they’re holding the image for the other person. So, you know I just think it’s that. You just constantly have to let each other grow and to do that you have to hold that spirit for them to reach a kind of resolution of whatever is bothering them at the time and it almost always does resolve itself in some sort of synthesis.
KALA: And now you two are working together on a global prayer project. Tell us about that.
JAMES: Well this is something that we started just about eight or nine months ago at a small level and just sort of began to let it grow and the idea is this, we really felt that we were most of the people out there were offering through the eleventh insight as you know movies like “The Secret” it’s really about mastering this creative potential that we have. So we really believe in prayer and the idea was about this prayer and we really wanted to put that in action in sort of twelve insight ways if I can say that which is to just say okay let’s create a prayer group that every other week meets together, connected, not just where ever we are actually at home, but connected on the phone line to begin with so that we can all yell hello to everybody. “Hi I’m here and I’m from Maine, this one’s from Germany, this one’s from Australia,” and suddenly you know we have hundreds and thousands of people connected together electronically. Then, we select issues out there that we want to pray about and we do a guided meditation right about that and pull everybody together, their energy into a guided focus, very intensive meditating prayer.
SALLE: Not only that, we also spend time with everyone and being able to feel if I sense some kind of healing in their own life then I think one of the big reasons we began the global prayer project was to show people that we are connected, to not feel so alone because like a lot of other authors who write in the same genre that we do, they will go out to stations around the world and the people will say are we the only ones who feel this way or think this way and James and I heard that as well and so for the global prayer project you actually hear Mary from Australia or New Zealand or Kansas City you know you’re not the only one because if someone’s going to consider her time to show up and participate you know there’s a seriousness, the desire for healing and for growth and support of the world.
JAMES: They can feel it. You can feel the connection. There’s energy, when Salle sort of assembles us and we merge our energies, we form a circle around the planet, with the planet in the middle, and focus on the Middle East or Iraq or whatever conflict is most up for everybody. We send a prayer wave into that conflict and affirm with a strong affirmation and attention the people within that conflict rise into their greatest selves and their deepest spiritual connection that will bring wisdom and courageous action to move towards peace so we don’t take sides, we don’t deal with issues. We deal with the people lifting up to make the right decisions to bring this world forward towards peace.
KALA: I think it’s a glorious project and I believe like your ninth insight talked about technology moving forward to help humanity to evolve and here you are using the internet and phones and we have the power to connect like this all around the world. It’s amazing to see that taking form and the power of prayer as we all know is so strong. Such a wonderful project.
JAMES: You know it’s just growing like crazy. People are connecting you know again on the phone lines but also through the world wide web to listen to the conversations going on and you know we’re growing into thousands and tens of thousands and you know what we envision and a lot of people out there would help us do this but we really envision a million people all connected together feeling that connection and that oneness of thought and attention to be able to focus this prayer for resolution of conflict any time...
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