"The vast majority of people are good people. We cooperate more than we compete. Our society works because we can trust each other. For the most part."
Alternative medicine, biofields, orientalism, fad diets, good vibes, past lives, extra psychic layers of reality visited via meditative tourism... if you grew up with at least one person susceptible to such nonsense you couldn't avoid a contact high over the years. Thus it was with myself back in the '90s, and thus I came to know THE CELESTINE PROPHECY (some book titles are just made to be written in all-caps... and possibly glitter or rhinestones.)
If you lack a mental image of the New Age movement, consider it simply a condensed version of many stupid little urban fads now independently cycling through pop culture every few years. From your online date calling herself "not religious but spiritual" (whatever the fuck that means) to slavishly copying some outside culture (weeaboos and hipsters go hand in hand (preferably off a short pier)) to those incapable of rational thought touting "mind-expanding" drugs and chi-chuggin' meditation or other putatively transcedent experiences, to accountants doing tai chi in the park, all these rose necromantically out of '60s/'70s counterculture to hit the American market all at once. The Heaven's Gate cult was just one inevitable outgrowth of such trends. Sure THE CELESTINE PROPHECY may not be remembered much now* but it made the rounds among trendy middle-class housewives pretty reliably back in its day, and more than a few readers took its babble about psychic arm wrestling as literally as a prior generation's hippies had taken Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (perpetually rankling that far saner author.)
Fundamentally, the book rates a painfully trite little hero's journey. The protagonist is called to adventure by a politically correct mentor, travels the mystical lands beyond (a.k.a. Peru, land of llama dung and the copper in your smartphone) to recover a world-changing macguffin pursued by eeee-vil gum'mint conspiracies, learns magic and returns to restore his people to their rightful beatitude. Honestly, I'd respect the writer more if he'd just penned in a dragon to be slain at some point. As testament to THE CELESTINE PROPHECY's quality, even its one decent point was lifted from elsewhere.
Buried among all the mystical gibberish, it reminded its audience that human personalities and behaviors are basically roles played in order to wrest "energy" from others by making others emotionally or attentionally invested in oneself. Ignoring the psychic energy bullshit, drawing on others' resources can be achieved through both offensive and defensive strategies, categorized in the novel into four, which I'd rather term aggressive, intrusive, tempting or needy. As to superficial validity, I'll just point you to our modern internet attention economy and a few strategies employed by rabblerousers, charlatans and general hacks:
- hashtag mobs converging upon targets of public shaming
- cyberstalking individuals' every comment in history to root out heretical thoughts
- listicles and "this one secret THEY don't want you to know" clickbait
- posturing as a martyr for having had your ass pinched that time back in '07
These are neither new ideas nor new behaviors, even at face value. They could and I'm sure have benefited from more thorough psychological, evolutionary or game theory analysis over the years. Manipulation has always coexisted with violence. Cooperation is a form of competition, banding together, teaming up, ganging up. Playing the victim, emotionally extorting material concessions or getting others to fight for you are means of powermongering. So how far have our intellectual standards fallen that even THE CELESTINE PROPHECY a dime-a-dozen hippie fart in the wind from thirty years ago, was more realistic about this manipulative facet of human behavior than we dare to be now? Now, when the university system itself has been laid waste by the grand priests and priestesses of uncritical "poor me" entitlement. Isn't it hilarious that even the loftiest heights of intelligentsia can no longer muster the rigorous skepticism of the New Age movement? Laugh, damn you.
Our society does not work, precisely because we trust each other too much. For the most part. Even the tiny sane part lies moribund. It's over. Just enjoy pretending you're a psychic Mayan supersoldier, until the vermin break down your door to slit your throat.
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* Or maye it is remembered? I'm finding a discouraging wealth of fan sites for this old yarn, some with disturbingly modern layouts.
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