The Celestine Prophecy

At Viciente Lodge, the narrator meets Marjorie, a biologist whom he finds very attractive. She functions as both a mentor and a love interest in the plot. At their first meeting, Marjorie senses the narrator’s attraction through his energy field and walks away, overwhelmed by the strength of the attraction. The narrator and Marjorie meet again later in Cula, where she is staying with a group searching for the Ninth Insight. The narrator immediately senses that something is amiss with Jensen, the group’s leader; however, Marjorie is portrayed as rather innocent, naive, and trusting, and she fails to see his true character.

The narrator eventually finds Marjorie in the prison where he is taken after being captured. The two manage to escape, and the narrator realizes that their attraction is mutual and stronger than ever. However, he agrees to have her sent away because he believes that his feelings for her jeopardize his ability to achieve the final insights. In this way, she functions as a foil, allowing the narrator to understand more about himself.

Ultimately, Marjorie is a female stereotype, not a fully rounded, developed, autonomous character. She is consistently portrayed as emotional and vulnerable, as when the narrator encounters her in prison. Her vulnerability seems to arouse the narrator’s passion: “Marjorie smiled and looked vulnerable and when she did, I felt another strong attraction to her” (167). Accordingly, Marjorie functions as the object of the narrator’s desires and, thereby, becomes one of the many examples positioned to illustrate one of the insights. As such, she serves primarily as a prop in the story, rather than as a character with an independent identity.

Dobson, a history professor from New York University, is the first mentor the narrator encounters on his quest. Dobson heard about the Manuscript on a previous stay in Peru and decided to return and head up a search. The narrator meets him on a plane to Peru when he overhears Dobson talking to a flight attendant about the Manuscript.

While they fly to Peru, Dobson acts as mentor and a guide who teaches the narrator about the Second Insight, which he discovered at a Peruvian priest’s home during a previous trip. Dobson and the narrator agree to look for the manuscript together and to meet later that day during their stay in Lima; however, the narrator realizes he is being followed on the way to his hotel. When he goes to Dobson’s hotel, the professor is under attack as gunfire rings out. Neither the narrator nor the reader knows what happened to Dobson at this point, but the narrator believes he was killed in the gunfire. Dobson reappears, however, at the end of the novel and is instrumental in finding the last fragment of the Manuscript. The novel is, thus, brought full circle, in keeping with the narrative logic of the quest.

Prominent in the early and middle sections of the novel, Wilson James functions as a key mentor to the narrator. He is a believer in the Manuscript and a friend of the priest who originally translated it. Wil is in his sixties and appears to be “of Peruvian descent, but the English he spoke sounded almost American” (31). Interestingly, he is one of the few people of color in the novel and a rare example of diversity within the text.

When gunfire rings out, Dobson appears to be hit, and the narrator starts running down the street. Wil happens to be in the right place at the right time, sees him, and places a helping hand on his shoulder. When Wil meets the narrator in Chapter 2, he already has a full understanding of the eight known insights, but he is notably reticent to divulge too much information too quickly. This key characteristic supports the New Age concept that spiritual knowledge must be individually attained, and Wil does not want to frustrate the personal process that the narrator must undergo.

After they are separated, Wil continues his quest for the Ninth Insight and eventually finds it. In the final chapter, he taps fully into the power of the Ninth Insight and appears to be the only seeker who manages to vibrate into a different dimension at the end of the novel—“Wil had faded from view” (243). This allows him to evade arrest and supports the view of Wil as the most spiritually realized character in the novel.

Father Sanchez is one of the most significant mentors to the narrator, accompanying him on a large part of the journey. Described as “a thin, tall man of about fifty” (102) with short brown hair, Father Sanchez appears at a crucial point when the narrator desperately needs help. The narrator is on the run from the military in Chapter 5 and just experienced his mountaintop epiphany. As is typical of the narrator’s encounters, this meeting seems both random and cosmically intentional. The narrator finds the priest alone on a deserted mountain road and turns to him for help. Father Sanchez guides him to his mission, where one of the other priests teaches him the Fifth Insight.

In the second half of the novel, Father Sanchez repeatedly enters and exits the scene; he is constantly conducting business, talking on the phone, and organizing fellow priests. He and the narrator journey together in the culminating scenes to Machu Picchu and eventually to Cardinal Sebastian to plead their case in defense of the Manuscript. Throughout the story, Father Sanchez is a helpful and compassionate character, a calming figure who patiently teaches and guides the narrator in his quest for spiritual knowledge.

Cardinal Sebastian is the key antagonist in the plot. He is a high-ranking church official who is firmly opposed to the Manuscript, believing it undermines important elements of the Catholic religion. Specifically, he fears that the Ninth Insight, which teaches about personal evolution, could undermine church doctrine. In his dispute with Father Sanchez in Chapter 9, Cardinal Sebastian reveals himself to be dogmatic in his arguments, but not to the point of violence. He wants to destroy the Manuscript and expunge its influence; however, he is not willing to order the killing of Wil and Julia when they sprint across the open field with the last fragment in their hands.

Cardinal Sebastian, therefore, is a somewhat more complex character than many of the other functionaries in the story. He serves as an obstacle to the narrator’s quest for knowledge and the pursuit of the Manuscript’s insights, but he also represents the intransigence of the Catholic Church—and organized religion in general—in its opposition to New Age ideas.

The novel is populated with numerous minor characters who function in stock roles. The most significant minor characters are the helpers who guide the narrator on his quest.

Julia appears in Chapter 6 and plays a key role in helping the narrator understand how his past shaped his present and his future. No backstory or significant description is provided for Julia, but she is a spiritual seeker who is deeply knowledgeable about the Manuscript. In the narrator’s second meeting with Julia, she instructs him about the Eighth Insight. This encounter marks a turning point in the narrator’s understanding of the insights and their relevance to his life. She serves as a nexus between major characters in the story, which suggests that even minor characters about whom little is known can play a significant role in the evolution of human consciousness.

The narrator meets Phil, a professor from California, at Viciente Lodge. He is described as “a man in his mid-forties” who speaks “in a rich Brooklyn accent” (53). The narrator further notes his casual demeanor and attire; he wears jeans and hiking boots. Phil’s academic specialty is the depletion of rainforests, which equips him well for the task of instructing the narrator in the Third Insight. Because he knows plants, Phil is able to guide the narrator to the perception of the energy fields that surround plants and trees, as well as those that surround each individual. Phil reappears later in the novel at Machu Picchu when Dobson reemerges; he becomes a key mentor at the end, explaining the implications of the Ninth Insight.

Reneau is a French psychology professor who teaches in Brazil. He is “in his early forties” and “of a slight build” (69). While Wil and the narrator are traveling, they meet Reneau at a small gas station, and they spend the night conversing with him about the Fourth Insight. 

As with other mentors, Reneau is well-suited to this role, as the Fourth Insight directly relates to human psychology. In particular, Reneau is interested in the energy dynamics between people that the narrator describes from his experiences at Viciente Lodge. This intrigues him because it aligns with his area of expertise, human interaction. Reneau plays a minor role as a mentor and does not reappear in the novel.