James Redfield - The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision

The works of James Redfield

The Celestine Prophecy

The Celestine Prophecy: An Experiential Guide (with Carol Adrienne)

The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

The Tenth Insight: An Experiential Guide (with Carol Adrienne)

The Celestine Vision: Living the New Spiritual Awareness

The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight

God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution (with Sylvia Timbers and Michael Murphy)

The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision

Im in gratitude for many people who in some way contributed to this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank the many individuals worldwide, existing across all religions, who keep the idea of an authentic spiritual consciousness alive and thriving. It is your quiet fortitude that is literally saving the day.

Also, special mention goes to Larry Dossey for his book The Power of Premonitions . He somehow always produces a landmark work just when it is time to popularize a step forward in human awareness. Thanks to Dr. Russell Blaylock, who leads the fight against dangerous chemical additives in our food. And Michael Murphy, who holds the space for so many who seek to bridge the great human divides of our time: first the Cold War, and now Religious and Cultural Intolerance. Also Id like to acknowledge the work of Carl Johan Calleman and John Major Jenkins concerning the Mayan Calendar. And a sincere thanks goes to Phil Cousineau for his brilliant analysis of comparative religious thought.

Closer to home, I must say many thanks to Larry Kirshbaum, and my publisher Jamie Raab, who grasped the vision and helped to shape its ideas; to the many people at Grand Central Publishing who help turn a manuscript into a book; to Kelly Leavitt, whose artful eye always tracks for impact and comprehension; to Albert Clayton Gaulden, for his cosmological timing; and to Larry Miller, whose many conversations have sparked my thinking. Also, thanks to Steve Maraboli, whose Better Today community is a prime example of the emerging Twelfth Insight.

Most of all, Id like to express gratitude and love to my wife, Salle, whose support and deep insight nurtured my spirit along the way.

I turned onto the freeway and hit cruise control, trying to ease up a bit. There was plenty of time to meet Wil at the airport. So I forced myself to relax and take in the autumn sunshine and the rolling southern hills. Not to mention the flocks of crows slinking along the shoulders of the highway.

The crows, I knew, were a good sign, even if I had been battling with them all summer. In folklore, their presence indicates mystery and an impending rendezvous with ones own destiny. Some say they will even lead you to such a moment, if you chance to follow them long enough.

Unfortunately, they will also show up in the early mornings to eat the young pea plants in your backyard gardenunless, of course, you make a deal. They laugh at scarecrows and shotguns. But if you give them their own row of plants near the forest, they will tend to leave the rest alone.

Just then, a single crow flew over the car and out in front of me. Then turned completely around and headed back the way Id come. I tried to follow it in the rearview mirror, but all I could see was a dark blue SUV about a hundred yards back.

Thinking nothing of the vehicle, I continued to watch the scenery, taking in a deep breath and hitting another level of relaxation. A road trip, I thought, nothing like it. I wondered how many people, in how many places, were experiencing this exact kind of momentgetting away from the stress of an unsure world, just to see what might happen.

Only, in my case, I was also looking for something. For months now, I had been running into total strangers all talking about the same thing: the secret release of an old, unnamed Document. Supposedly, it had come from a coalition representing the worlds religious traditions, and word of it was already widespread, at least among those with an ear for such things. Yet no one seemed to have any details. Rumor had it that it was now being released ahead of schedule, out of necessity.

For me, the rumors were both intriguing and slightly humorous. The idea of a coalition among the religious traditions was hardly new, but it had always proven to be all but impossible in reality. The differences in beliefs were just too great. And in the end, each tradition wanted to prevail over the others.

In fact, I had been ready to dismiss the rumors when something else had occurred: I received a fax from Wil. He sent me two translated pages, ostensibly from this old Document. In the margin of the first page was a notation in Wils handwriting saying, This has both Hebrew and Arabic origins.

As I read the pages, it seemed to be a treatment of modern times, proclaiming that something important was going to begin in the second decade of the twenty-first century. I grimaced at the date, thinking it might be one more end-of-the-world prophecyanother in a long line of doomsday predictions misinterpreting everything from the Mayan Calendar to Nostradamus to Revelation. All shouting to the ends of the Earth: Havent you heard, the world is ending in 2012!

For years now, the media had been pushing the end times scenario, and people, though worried, also seemed deeply intrigued. The big question was why? What could be causing this fascination? Is it just the excitement over being alive at the precise time the Mayan Calendar is scheduled to end? Or was it something else? Maybe, just maybe, our fascination with the end revealed a latent intuition, increasingly noticeable, that something better was about to be born.