THE CELESTE EXPERIMENT

In this novel, a billionaire widower, angry that religion didn’t save his cancer-stricken wife, recruits a teenage Indian girl to test the truth of spiritual revelation.

In Paris, Michael Sergeant asks Professor Dufort, the “world’s leading expert on the critique of religion,” how the “age of faith” can be ended. Michael desires this due to the death of his wife, Celeste, whom he met when he was her private-jet pilot. When Celeste was diagnosed with cancer, the couple explored various faith systems: Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and others. By the time they got to Islam, Michael’s hope in faith had faded, and Celeste soon died in a hospital. While Dufort tells him that “all the money in the world will not fund enough research to bring down religion,” Michael, now “heir to over a billion pounds,” decides to set up someone in the same circumstances that led Muhammad to have a spiritual revelation in a cave. Michael, working with various helpers, brings 17-year-old Hamida Begum, an orphan living in India with her grandmother, to his estate in Cumbria. A nearby cave is prepared, but Hamida first travels with Maurice Dufort, the professor’s researcher nephew, whom Michael has hired to educate and seduce her. Hamida’s grandmother always told her that she had a special destiny as a descendant of the Mughal imperial line. Now, the teen starts to experience more of the world as well as her own mystical powers. Then her time in the cave produces a “result” that surprisingly reconnects Michael to Celeste. Imady packs a lot of destinations and historical/religious threads into this ambitious novel. This makes for somewhat dizzying reading at times, although the book will pique readers’ interest to learn more about the Mughal Empire. Some of the story’s mechanics are fuzzy—how do Michael’s helpers come to pick Hamida, and were they fully aware of her special qualities? Still, the tale’s core—Hamida and Maurice connecting—is a rather sweet and touching romance, a reflection of the overriding power of love that is the engrossing story’s overall message.  

An engaging, meditative, globe-trotting tale that ultimately reinforces the presence of spiritual forces.