The Celestine Prophecy The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. More popular than The Bridges of Madison County, more philosophical than Socrates, and it rivals onlu R.L. Stein's Fear Street series in bad writing. It's a "novel of ideas" says Kenneth Moyle in his very critical essay "Why I Hate the Celestine Prophecy." "A novel of ideas;" that's a good phrase for this "novel." I read it twice during this assignment: the first time I thought he had great ideas and themes to live by; the second time I still thought he had great ideas, but a terrible way of presenting them. Moyle says "...for all intents and purposes, this is not a novel but rather a New-Age manifesto..."