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Contents

Cover

Copyright

The Tenth Insight

Dedication

Understanding the Transformation

Moving Toward the Tenth Insight

The Tenth Insight: Sacred Sites

The Tenth Insight: A Gift from the Animals

The Tenth Insight: Believing in Our Intuitions

The Tenth Insight: Overcoming the Fear

The Tenth Insight: A Knowledge of the Afterlife

The Tenth Insight: Angels in Our Midst

The Tenth Insight: The Life Review

The Tenth Insight: Remembering Our Intention

The Tenth Insight: A History of Awakening

The Tenth Insight: Facing the Polarization

The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Backmatter

James Redfield

The Tenth Insight

Holding the Vision
a Pocket Guide

FOR MY DAUGHTERS
MEGAN AND KELLY

UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSFORMATION

THROUGHOUT HISTORY, WE humans have experienced dramatic shifts in how we have lived and viewed the world. One of the first such shifts occurred many thousands of years ago, when early mankind realized that they need not be confined to lives of wandering and gathering, struggling each day to find food. For thousands of years we had lived in small bands that could move quickly, each group canvassing the countryside, looking for berries, eatable roots, and wildlife that could be consumed for nourishment. When these foodstuffs were depleted, the band had no choice but to move on, for that was the only conceivable way of life.

Then slowly, we realized that we could cultivate certain plants and domesticate certain animals, making it possible to form villages and to settle permanently in one fertile region, storing our surplus foods. Because enough food could be provided without everyone working as farmers, other occupations emerged, and thus civilization was born. This transformation from wandering to farming villages dramatically changed the prevailing worldview and created a new vision of life unthinkable only a few centuries earlier.

A second major world transformation occurred a few thousand years later, as the complexity of civilization reached an even higher level. Powerful energy sources and advances