New Age or new opiate? A cultural analysis of "The Celestine Prophecy"

The Celestine Prophecy is a popular new age novel which has attracted an audience numbering in the millions. Looking at this book from both the political and cultural economic perspectives allows us to analyze economic factors behind the book's production, the text itself, and the ways the audience uses the text. From these perspectives we can see what produced this cultural phenomenon, and examine alternative meanings that readers of the text may find in it. Issues of hegemony, diversity and domination are explored, as is the "structure of feeling" of the text. How the audience uses or resists the ideas incorporated in the novel is also studied.