Interview with Marianne Williamson

Summary

Otherworld Podcast

Episode: Interview with Marianne Williamson
Host: Jack Wagner
Guest: Marianne Williamson
Air Date: September 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Otherworld, host Jack Wagner sits down for a deep, expansive, and moving conversation with Marianne Williamson. Best known as an author, spiritual teacher, activist, and two-time U.S. presidential candidate, Marianne openly discusses her spiritual journey, the impact of "A Course in Miracles" on her life, her political motivations, and her perspective on the paranormal. The conversation weaves together personal anecdotes, metaphysical insights, American history, and stories—some deeply supernatural—with a characteristic blend of heart and intellect.

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Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. Marianne's Many Eras: From Texas Childhood to Presidential Candidate

• Diverse Life Chapters: Marianne reflects on her multifaceted life, from a Texas Jewish upbringing ("We were high holiday Jews, very Jewish, and we were Texas Jews, you know?" [07:02]) to living with prominent figures like Laura Dern in LA.
• Early Experiences with World Events: She recounts a formative trip to Vietnam her father arranged after she repeated pro-war rhetoric at the dinner table. Her father, an immigration lawyer, wanted her to witness the realities of war firsthand.

  "He took us to Vietnam, he said, to show us what war was." (09:26)

2. The Birth of a Spiritual Teacher

• Background in Drama and Philosophy: Marianne explains how her interest in drama, philosophy, and world religions prepared her for public speaking but not for a clear career path (“That career niche didn’t even exist...I was just this girl talking over in Los Angeles” [11:20]).
• Discovery of A Course in Miracles: She discovered the book in her 20s, which became the spiritual and practical core of her teachings.

  “It was my awakening, not to spiritual topics, but to practical application in a whole new way.” (15:15)

About "A Course in Miracles"

• What is it?: “A self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy...a psychological training in surrendering and dismantling a thought system based on fear and accepting instead a thought system based on love.” (17:25)
• Origin Story: Developed at Columbia University by two psychology professors, channeling a voice (believed by some to be Jesus), recorded via automatic dictation (19:03).
• Universal Message: Not a dogmatic religion, but “Christ-centered.” Marianne emphasizes it’s compatible with all backgrounds.

3. Spirituality Meets Activism and Crisis

• Impact of the AIDS Crisis: Marianne describes how her spiritual work and role as a community leader deepened during the AIDS epidemic in LA. She founded Project Angel Food and became known for guiding people through the most difficult moments.

  “We can’t promise who will live and who will die. But we can promise each other no one will die alone. No one will go through this alone. And that itself was the miracle." (31:46)

• Socioeconomic Insight: As her platform grew, Marianne interacted with both the most and least privileged in society, giving her unique insights into American power structures.

4. The Intersection of Spiritual and Political Systems

• America’s Metaphysical Foundations: She shares knowledge about the symbolic meaning behind America’s Great Seal and the influence of esoteric and mystical traditions on the country’s founders.

  “Our founders knew all this. They were just like Benjamin Franklin was a Rosicrucian. These guys were Masons...that was not considered woo woo…” (35:35)

• Critique of the Political System: Marianne discusses the backlash and mischaracterization ("crystal lady politician") she faced during her political runs, attributing this to mainstream gatekeeping and the “narrowed” public discourse.

  “I know the absolute wickedness of the system that came up with that and that promulgated that...it’s difficult to laugh after a certain point.” (44:50)

5. Experiences of the Unexplainable

• Perspective on the Paranormal: Marianne resists labeling things "paranormal," preferring to see them as aspects of reality not yet accounted for by science.

  “I don’t believe that anything is paranormal.” (40:48)

• Stories of Intuition and Guidance:
  • A compelling story of a woman whose intuition saved her from two separate murderers—one being Ted Bundy, the other a machete-wielding attacker, repelled by what appeared to be an angelic presence ([58:03–61:46]).
  • Perceptual experiences, such as seeing light around a baby’s head ([62:04–63:20]).
  • Post-death visitations from friends, communicating messages like “There is no death.” (64:39–66:56)
• Death, Dying, and the Afterlife: Marianne shares personal and observed accounts from deathbeds, describing a heightened, mystical atmosphere and the dissolution of the boundary between the living and the spiritual.

6. The Human Experience of Transition

• Birth and Death as Magic Hours: She sees both as “magical,” liminal times, akin to sunrise and sunset, when reality shifts ([78:01]).
• Major Life Changes and Miracles: Both Jack and Marianne compare the strangeness felt during personal/life transitions to stepping “into another reality.”

7. A Call for Evolution & Optimism

• Societal Crisis as Opportunity: Marianne frames America’s current turmoil as an evolutionary turning point. She believes that if enough of us are receptive, radical positive transformation—a “miracle”—is possible ([83:13–87:24]).

  “If you see it as a necessary evolution...something was gonna. Something had to give. But...this is a not only a self-organizing, but a self-correcting universe.” (83:13)

8. Final Message

• If One Message Could Reach Everyone:

  “Let’s have some mercy on ourselves. Let’s have some mercy on each other. Let’s try to forgive each other. Let’s get about the work of creating a more beautiful world, not just in talk, but in our own individual lives as best we can...Naive is thinking that we will survive on this planet for another hundred years if we don’t at least try to make love the bottom line.” ([87:42–88:55])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On America’s Original Mysticism:
  “Our founders knew all this. They were just like Benjamin Franklin was a Rosicrucian. These guys were Masons...that was not considered woo woo…” (35:35)
• On Political Gatekeeping:
  “I know the absolute wickedness of the system that came up with that and that promulgated that…” (44:50)
• On the AIDS crisis & the Miraculous:
  “We can’t promise who will live and who will die. But we can promise each other no one will die alone. No one will go through this alone. And that itself was the miracle." (31:46)
• On Near-Death and Afterlife:
  “I don’t think we die. I think the body is like a suit of clothes...Physical birth is not the beginning, but the continuation of your life. Physical death is not the end, but the continuation of your life.” (67:09)
• On the Evolutionary Crisis in America:
  “When we get off our high horse and realize that we’re not doing so well here, and there’s a possibility of another way, then all kinds of amazing things are going to happen.” (85:13)
• Ultimate Takeaway:
  “Let’s have some mercy on ourselves. Let’s have some mercy on each other. Let’s try to forgive each other. Let’s get about the work of creating a more beautiful world...” (87:42)

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Key Timestamps

• 05:19 – Marianne introduces her background, living with Laura Dern
• 07:02–10:38 – Early spiritual upbringing, traveling, formative family moments
• 12:04–17:25 – Discovery and transformative effect of A Course in Miracles
• 19:03–23:10 – The origin of A Course in Miracles; its channeled nature
• 31:46–35:18 – AIDS epidemic, founding Project Angel Food, insights on American power
• 35:18–40:39 – Metaphysical roots of the United States; societal critique
• 40:39–44:34 – Marianne’s rejection of the term ‘paranormal’ and discussion of guidance/intuition
• 58:03–61:57 – Paranormal story: intuition saves a woman from Ted Bundy and a second attack
• 62:04–66:56 – Stories of seeing auras, post-death visits from loved ones
• 67:09–76:25 – Reflections on death, afterlife, and what happens when we die
• 78:01–81:56 – Birth and death, mystical ‘magic hours,’ personal stories
• 83:13–87:24 – The U.S. in a time of crisis as evolutionary opportunity
• 87:42–88:55 – Final message to the world

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Conclusion

This episode provides a heartfelt exploration of the intersections between the mystical and the political, the personal and the universal, embracing both the pain and beauty of the human experience. Marianne Williamson’s signature blend of spirituality and activism, stories of the unexplainable, and hope for collective evolution make this a memorable and stirring conversation for both longtime followers and newcomers alike.

Web Resources:

• Marianne’s Substack: mariannewilliamson.substack.com
• Workshops & events: marianne.com

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For fans of Otherworld and anyone interested in spiritual experiences, this episode stands as a passionate case for love, compassion, and the reality that something greater moves through all of us—if we’re willing to listen.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[A]

First thing I wanted to ask you, when I was researching for this interview, I was amazed by how many eras you've had, so to speak, like how many lives you've lived, essentially, especially given the fact that you've had two various serious runs for president on top of everything you've done. I saw that your roommate at one point was Laura Dern.

[B]

Yeah, and Linda Obst was my college Roommate who was a producer in LA that became. Who became well known. Yeah. And Laura and I were housemates.

[A]

Yeah, well, actually. Yeah, let's talk about that for a second. How did that come to be? I had to. I really wanted to know who Laura.

[B]

Well, Laura's mother, as you know, is Diane Ladd. So Diane called me. I guess she knew me from my. From my lectures. And I remember I was 31 years old, and she said, my daughter wants to come. Said she wants to live outside the home. And I told her, well, the only way she can live outside the home is if she lives with you, so she's going to come live with you. And I was 31 and Laura was 18. And I thought I was thinking of sex, I was thinking of marijuana, I was thinking. And then I. But, you know, when Diane Lagg calls you up and just tells you, you know, it was like. And I remember when I opened the front door and this adorable girl comes walking up the sidewalk. Hi, I'm Laura Dern. And I was in love at that moment. She was, you know, really extraordinary girl.

[A]

Were you always spiritual or, like, what was your upbringing like? Wanted to know where this all started for you.

[B]

Traditional Jew. Traditional conservative Jewish home. Now, when you say conservative in terms of Conservative Judaism, that's not a political term. It's that middle space. There's Orthodox, then Conservative, then Reform. My grandparents, though, particularly one of my grandfathers, was more religious. So we were high holiday Jews, very Jewish, and we were Texas Jews, you know?

[A]

Yeah, I was gonna say Texas on top of that.

[B]

Yeah. Born and raised in Houston. I think when it comes to my youth and my 20s, there was nothing unique about my life except that my parents did take us traveling all over the world. That was certainly unique, particularly at that time.

[A]

Well, famously, Vietnam. Right. I thought that was so interesting.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

He took you to Vietnam in 1975 to show you that war was. Oh, 65. 65, yes.

[B]

Yeah, 1965. I came home, it was seventh grade civics class or social studies, I can't remember which. And I informed. And I think about it now, I informed my parents at dinner why we were fighting in Vietnam. And I informed my parents about what we called at that time the domino theory. It was the way the military industrial complex was selling that war was that if we let the Communists, if we didn't stop them in Vietnam, that we would be fighting them one day on the shores of Hawaii. And so I'm just. I'm a kid. I'm in the seventh grade, and I'm Just explaining that that's why we have to fight Vietnam. My mother.

[A]

So you're on the side of the war. You're a kid parroting the pro war.

[B]

Well, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just telling them, of course I have to, because. So I watched my mother, and I remember my mother going sort of like this, her face turning pale, and my mother's turning white. My father's turning red, right? And he's just. And then at the end, he stands up, he says, damn it, sweetheart, get the visas. We're going to Vietnam. Those bastards aren't gonna eat my children's brains. And he did. He took us to Vietnam, he said, to show us what war was.

[A]

That's incredible. Where'd you guys go?

[B]

Well, at that time, you could still go to Saigon, but you couldn't go five miles out. But he wanted us to see the bullet holes, and he wanted us to see what bullet holes were, and he wanted us to know who put them there. And I remember his talking about people and saying, their lives are going to be very, very hard. The people in the city, their lives will be very, very hard within a very few years. So my father was someone who was a really magical, incredible human being, actually. And so he did. I traveled out behind the Iron Curtain when I was very young. Taiwan, all over the world, and my parents traveled everywhere. He was an immigration lawyer.

[A]

Okay, interesting.

[B]

He was an immigration lawyer, as was my brother. So that was another thing. The plight of the immigrant meant a lot to us, and we lived in Houston. So, you know, what happens when you have traveled, like I did as a child, or seen certain things that my parents showed us when we were children? There are certain lies and propaganda you're never vulnerable to in the same way.

[A]

What did you want to do when you were a kid? Like, what did you imagine yourself doing when you grew up?

[B]

I thought I would be a lawyer or an actor.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And then I was studying at school, I was studying drama and philosophy. So in a way, it makes sense, because I think with the background in some more theatrical pursuits, I learned just how to stand on a stage and talk to an audience. But when my career began, there was no way that I could see it as a career, because that career niche didn't even exist. You know, my mother would say, well, why don't you go to school and get a PhD and teach Comparative religion? And I was like, no. And then she would say, what if we send you to Rabbinical school and you could be a rabbi. No, I just want to get up and talk about these things. I just want to get up and talk about this book. And there was no niche at that time for anything like this. So there was no way to think of it with any ambition, career ambition. The niche didn't even exist. And I think that that was a blessing on me. I was just this girl talking over in Los Angeles, over at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz. And during the day I was a secretary. I was a temporary secretary. And at time I worked in their book department.

[A]

The book is A Course in Miracles, right?

[B]

A Course in Miracles, yeah.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Because I had always been very interested in anything that had to do with a higher mind. But I was always interested. It could be Goethe, it could be Schopenhauer, it could be St. Thomas Aquinas, it could be St. Augustine, or it could be the I Ching, or it could be Tarot cards, or it could be. It was. I've never. I've always been fascinated by all of it. And also when I was growing up, like when I was in college, you read Ram Dass and Alan Watts in the morning, and then in the afternoon you went to Vietnam. Anti war protests. We didn't have this BS going on about lanes. Choose your lane. Especially at that time, when I was growing up, when I was a young woman, it was a countercultural revolution. It was everything. It was music, it was sex, it was spirituality, it was politics. And so it was more of an age of the generalists, not this age of the specialists. You didn't have to choose. You were just talking about the creation of a new world. And you realized that everything had to change in order for that new world to be brought forth. And you can laugh all you want, but you know what? We were right.

[A]

That's so cool that you. I was gonna bring that up later, that you worked at the Philosophical Research Society.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I actually have. This is quite heavy.

[B]

Do you have some Manly hall books? Okay. I met him. I met him. He was still alive. When I was working there, there was a woman named Kathleen.

[A]

I'm holding like a 50 pound book right now. This is huge.

[B]

Yeah. And his whole thing about the metaphysical roots of America, of the United States, all of that was very, very significant to me. And he was still speaking, I think, on Sundays. And the woman who headed the place and really gave my career was a woman. Gave me my career was a woman named Pat Irvin. Pat Irvin was interesting because she was at that time and there was another woman. Her name was Elizabeth Claire Prophet. I never met her, but it was an interesting ilk of people who were, on one hand, highly metaphysical and yet politically very right wing.

[A]

How did you, like. Did you have a moment where you became interested in the spiritual world, I guess, for lack of a better term, in spirituality? Was there a moment that that came to you, or was that. Go ahead.

[B]

I was all, well, as I was saying before, I was always just interested in anything of the higher mind. It could be astrology, it could be. I didn't care Eastern, I didn't care for Western. I didn't care if it was exoteric and traditional. I didn't care if it was esoteric. It was all fascinating to me. However, it was not lost on me that I didn't know how to apply very much of it in a way that made a difference in my life. Not really. And when I found the Course in Miracles, I started reading it. It was in. That would have been in my 20s that everything came together.

[A]

That was your awakening moment, A Course in Miracles.

[B]

It was my awakening, not to spiritual topics, but to practical application in a whole new way. And I had read the Seth books, particularly a book called the Nature of Personal Reality. And the Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts was very much about the fact that the universe as we know it is ideational, that everything we experience is the reflection of an idea. So I was already grounded in that. And I think the Course. You rarely meet somebody. I've never met anyone for whom the Course in Miracles was their entrance point into anything having to do with a higher mind or spirituality or higher consciousness. Everybody has something that gave them kind of like. Because I understood this, the Course in Miracles made sense. And that was that. To me, that when the Course says anything, you're thinking without love is not even a thought. It's a hallucination. It's like when I had read Einstein who said time and space as we know it is. He thought it is an illusion of consciousness, albeit a persistent one, he said. So I had already understood that line because of that nature of personal reality. But then when I read it in the Course in Miracles, that whole concept. And I also knew that Buddha talked about attachment. It was all psychological and the world is an illusion. I kind of. I got it all and I just ate it up. But then when I read the Course in Miracles, it's like. And this is how this applies to your life, Marianne? So, yeah, it was profound for me.

[A]

Can you explain the Course in Miracles for anyone? Who's not familiar with this book because it's a. It's a major through line through, like everything you've done, which I find really fascinating. You've written, I believe, 10 books yourself.

[B]

16.

[A]

16. Okay, I'm wrong, sorry. This is really something that you discovered early on and has stuck with you the entire time, which, I mean, that's. I'd say that's fairly unusual. People tend to bounce around. But this has been a major part of your entire life and career.

[B]

The Course in Miracles has been referred to as a self study program of spiritual psychotherapy. It calls itself a psychological mind training. It is not a religion. It makes that clear. This is not a religion. There's no dogma here. There's no doctrine here. It's a psychological training in surrendering and dismantling a thought system based on fear which dominates our world and accepting instead a thought system based on love. And the message of the course is that the thinking of the world is dominated by thinking that is 180 degrees away from ultimate reality, God, love. And that enlightenment is a shift from the thinking of this world, what is dominant in this world, to the natural order of things, which is love. It's pretty simple and it's pretty practical. And it's not that it's difficult, it's different. What's difficult is getting over our resistance to applying it. The ideas themselves are very simple. But, boy, we are so attached in this world to thinking thoughts that we can look at our own lives, you know, well, how's that working out for you? You could look at the state of the planet. Yeah, really, guys, how's that working out? And yet, as the Course in Miracles says, some people would rather die than change their mind.

[A]

And this is a channeled text, right?

[B]

It's really interesting. It was two college professors at Columbia University. Now that's an interesting story right there. Because they were, you know, it's something about the vortex at Columbia University, which is true now and was also true when I was growing up during the 1960s with all the political brouhaha that was going on there, particularly at Low Library at the time. Between 1965 and 1971, there were two clinical psychology professors and they were tenured, and they were very secretive about what they were doing because they thought, well, if anyone knows about this, we could lose our jobs. We're at Columbia University. And what happened was that there was a woman named Helen Shuckman. Well, first there was a meeting and there was a lot of academic infighting in their department. And the Head of the clinical psych department was a man named Bill Thetford. And there was a woman named Helen Schucman. And Helen, he said, there must be a better way or there must be another way. I can't remember which. And she said, I'll help you find it. And the Course in Miracles says that that's very, very pivotal because two or more gathered is a very profound. An agreement between two people. There's nothing more powerful than agreement between two people. That night she started having weird dreams, really strange dreams. And I think three months later, she goes to Bill and she says, I don't know what to do. I think I'm having a nervous breakdown. And he said, what's going on? And she said, I'm hearing a voice in my head. And this came from these dreams. And he said, well. She said, I don't know what to do. He said, well, what is the voice saying? And she said, the voice is saying, please take notes. This is a course in miracles. And she said, bill, what should I do? And he said, well, if I were you, I'd take notes. So she started taking notes, a kind of automatic dictation. She said anytime it was available, she would write it down, a kind of shorthand. She would deliver the material to him and then he would type it out. And this whole thing. She said one of the worst days of her life was when she heard the voice say, volume two. So she had, it turned out to be a text and then a workbook for students which is 365 days of lessons which are like meditation exercises. And then a third volume called the Manual for Teachers. They were led to very interesting experiences to people who would end up publishing it. You know, it doesn't proselytize. It's like AA that way. It's not, you know, it's attraction, not promotion. The books are free. I'm sure they still do that, just like at that time if you couldn't afford them. It doesn't claim to be for everybody. It doesn't have a monopoly on truth. There's a place in the Course in Miracles where it says psychotherapy and religion at their peak are the same thing. I think everybody, you know, it's like Gandhi said, the problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind. If you see the state of the world today, we are freaking insane. What's going on on this planet.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And nobody should be called woo woo or kooky for suggesting such a thing. It's so clearly obvious to any thinking person and yet the power centers and gatekeeping forces in Western civilization, for sure, other places, in some ways, it's even worse, are so tied to a particular worldview, and they see their power resting within a particular worldview, and they think that all hell will break loose if we let go of that worldview when the opposite is true. All hell. Hell is breaking loose because we hold to that. The course in miracles says love restores reason and not the other way around. There's nothing reasonable about what's happening on this planet.

[A]

I mean, I think what's most noteworthy about this is this book is like very Christian leaning. You know, that's like a lot of the themes. And in fact, I mean, the voice, she believed that it was Jesus, right, talking to her.

[B]

Well, that's a very interesting topic.

[A]

So I'm sure it could go. Yeah, I'm sure it's more complicated than that. Of course, you know.

[B]

No, it's not. I don't even just mean that it's more complicated, but I, as a Jew, how I have experienced that because it is not, not a religion and it is not quote unquote, Christian, but it is Christ centered in its teaching. So what I mean by that, for instance, when I first saw the course, I picked it up. I'm reading through it. It's fascinating to me, but I saw it. But I saw all the Christian language. Now, I had studied a lot of comparative religion. I'd studied Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure and Saint Augustine and Saint Teresa and all this stu in school. But this was not academic. And so I was like, oh, you know, I don't. We don't read that. That's all I had ever been told about the New Testament or about Jesus. My mother would say, we don't read that one, darling. We read the other one, you know, So I thought, well, I can't. But a year later, went through interesting experiences. The book ends up on my dining room table. I start reading it at that point, a year later, I'm in such pain in my life and I'm not thinking about language. And when you start actually reading it, you see very clearly this is not a religion in terms of Christianity. There are some things in the book where there's an agreement with traditional Christian theology, and then other places where it's very, very different. So people from all religions and people from no religions become student of the course in miracles. I never have felt that my Judaism was to be challenged, converted out of or anything like that. And so I know people who Are. You know, there used to be Catholic nuns who would come to my lectures. I've met priests, ministers, rabbis, sincere Christians, sincere Jews, Hindus, Muslims and agnostics and atheists. It all comes down to love. Are you a loving person? Good. Then you were aligned with God when you thought that or you did that. If you weren't, I don't care what language you use. You were off course, unaligned and a conduit for destruction rather than creation. I'm a Jewish mystic. I was, and I am. And then I found the Course in Miracles when I was in my 20s. And then I started. I had a bookstore when I was 27. And I used to have little. This was in Houston. And I used to have, like, little meetings about the Course in Miracles at my bookstore. And then when I moved to LA in, I was 31, it was 1983. And I went to get a job, got a job at the Philosophical Research Society. And the woman who ran the place asked me, she said, I hear you're a student of a Course in Miracles. I said, yes. She said, we need someone to give lectures. And I was so excited. I'd been studying the book for five years and I just read it over that time like a. With a fine tooth combed. It's so interesting to me. I have given, at this point, that was in 1983. I've given so many thousands of lectures, but. And I couldn't tell you what I wore last week, but I remember it was October. I think October 10th, I'm not sure was a Saturday morning. I remember at that time going with little index cards and putting the index card on various bulletin boards at coffee houses on Melrose Avenue and announcing that I was going to be giving this talk. I remember the this is how old I am pantyhose. I remember the red shoes. I remember the skirt. I remember the sweater. I remember the cubic zirconia earrings. I remember the necklace my mother bought me from Afghanistan. It's so strange that I remember that day the way I do. She called me that afternoon, said, would you like to do it every week? I was thrilled people would come. And at that time, the people of the Philosophical Research Society remember I was 31. And the people there. Rarely did you meet anyone. You were talking about Manly Hall. You have the book. Rarely did you meet anyone who was like, under 50. It was an older person's thing, metaphysics at that time. People would come on Saturday mornings and for what? People still make fun. They say, I remember when you served ginger ale and Then I started lecturing there on Tuesday nights. And then remember what it was like when Covid happened all of a sudden, that's what happened with aids. And it was a very, very horrible thing. And it was similar, but different than Covid, because with COVID very easy to get, but you would probably survive aids. Very difficult to get, but you would probably die if you did. It was in Los Angeles, particularly, a particularly cruel phenomenon among gay men. Now, I was 31, I'm not gay, but I had partied down just like these guys had, and a lot of the same places. And I spoke the language. I was them too. And I was speaking about a God who loves us no matter what, about how if you love enough, that miracles happen, that there is a power beyond the power of this world. And so gay men in Los Angeles gave me my career, really. It turned it into a thing where gay men, really, it became like, you used to club and do drugs. Now you went to course in miracles, lectures. And there was me, then there was Louise Hay, was doing something called the Hayride on Wednesday nights. I was doing my lectures on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings and then Sunday also. And it wasn't just gay men, but it was. Gay men were the main thing. And then we started these support groups. No, I didn't mean even just that it was only gay men about aids, but also the people who were studying the course.

[A]

No, I understand. Yeah.

[B]

It was such an ubiquitous, just like Covid was. No one could get away from talking about it, thinking about it, scared of it, crying over it, people dying everywhere. And so we started doing support groups and it became my life. We founded. You're in la. You probably know Project angelfood. Yes, I founded Project Angel Food out of that. That came out of all the support groups and the things that we were doing. It was a very terrible time, clearly. But it was also. Well, nobody who went through it could ever be the same.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it also. Because so early in my career, and once again, I didn't think of it as a career. There was no career path, you know what I'm saying? Here I am, early on, from 31 years old, up close and personal with human suffering, sickness and death of the most critical kind of sickness. People dying in my arms, officiating at funerals three times a week, telling work groups of people that were promising each other, I can't. You know, there was no medicine. It's not like Western medicine wasn't trying, because it was. But it was like Covid, there was no cure. And there did not come a vaccine like with COVID So, you know, it was like, we can't. And I remember I kept saying, I can't promise. We can't promise who will live and who will die. But we can promise each other no one will die alone. No one will go through this alone. And that itself was the miracle. The love was extraordinary. And the city of Los Angeles really responded. First of all, some of the big talents in LA were struck because, look, gay men, gay people, period. In every aspect of the arts, every aspect of the society, their contribution is higher than their numbers. But in la, are you kidding me? So Hollywood was so affected and the city showed up and there was a great love. So what happened for me was because of that, my career unfolded in a way. The joke used to be, nobody calls Marianne because things are going well. I became someone very, I wouldn't say comfortable within, but at home within. This is the worst day of your life. Let's talk about it. You know what I'm saying? People would call me when, you know, the doctor has said, there's nothing more we can do, bankruptcy, whatever. And what happened for me was that in the 1980s, most of the people I met, not just aides, but anything who were going through terrible experiences. The tenor of the United States of America was that the crisis was the exception and not the rule. Over the next 20 years, I saw something profoundly change in this country. And I met more and more people whose crisis, state of crisis was the rule and not the exception. It wasn't any longer that your problem was that you had cancer. The problem was that you also didn't have health care. The problem wasn't any longer that you needed a job. The crisis was you had a job, but one job wouldn't pay your rent for your family. So I began to see this. Meanwhile, when my first book had come out, which I wrote, during all that, I began working a lot around and with Oprah Winfrey, who really gave me my career. And so what happened in my life, My mother used to say, you're very socioeconomically well traveled. I spent a lot of time with the least advantaged members of our society and people who were the biggest sufferers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I spent a lot of time in my career with people, the most advantaged, the most LA billionaire types. Right now, it's not about nice people versus not nice people. I mean, they're wonderful people and people you wouldn't have lunch with everywhere no matter what. But I began to see, in a way, I think very few People do how power in America works. And I saw it up close and I saw it. This is unfair. This is unfucking fair. And I saw it. And by the way, the people I knew who were the most advantaged wouldn't disagree with me about that. It was just the way America happened. So when you talk about those people on the stage, I had seen too much to be impressed, including had been around too many politicians to be impressed by a class of people who had allowed this to happen, had not stopped it, and had no fundamental plans to turn it around.

[A]

A lot of your work, like a major theme in your books, is unseen forces sort of like influencing people's lives and even pushing them forward. If you're open to it and looking for it. Right. Is that something that you've felt throughout your own life?

[B]

Oh, God, yes. And I think we all do. I mean, whether you're looking at this through secular or religious or spiritual eyes, you could call it intuition, you could call it the voice of the Holy Spirit, you could call it the voice of God, you could call it a deeper knowing. It is the idea that our culture and our civilization and to a certain extent our human race is so stuck on the most shallow possible level of perception and perspective. Rationalistic, technocratic. We just look only at symptoms. There's no deep focus on cause. That was one of the reasons I wanted to run for President, because the conversation in this country was such that anybody with a holistic or whole person perspective could see the black clouds on the horizon. But you were asking about the. The invisible forces, which says to me that you read the foreword of Holy of Healing the Soul of America. If you read about the founders of this country, if you look at the dollar bill, you can take your dollar bill out right now. Look at the Great Seal of the United States. The Great Seal of the United States is the Great Pyramid at Giza. And on it, on the top of it is the capstone with the Eye of Horus returned. It's actually gone. Nobody knows where the capstone is. If it had just fallen off, then archeologists would have found it by now. Somewhere in that causeway between, probably between the Sphinx and the pyramids. Nobody's found it. There's been archeological digs for centuries. One of the theories that during the decline of Egyptian civilization, there were priests who went up to the top, remove buried it somewhere. And it said in the metaphysical tradition that the removal of the capstone means the burial of wisdom. The eye of Horus is the same as the eye of Christ. The Eye of the Holy Spirit, the third eye. You can talk about these things in traditional terms. You can talk about them in non traditional, esoteric terms. The idea with the Great Seal of the United States, and that was the main founders who designed it, not Jefferson, because he was in France at the time. Once again, in the metaphysical tradition, the capstone is buried. And when it is unearthed, that will be the return of wisdom and the awakening of the human race. So our great seal on our dollar bill, the great seal of the United States is the pyramid of Giza, the capstone return, the eye of Horus, the light. And that was what, you know, the way the light shone on it. People could see from hundreds of miles away where you know how to get to the pyramid and then underneath Novus ordo seclorum, new order of the ages. Our founders knew all this. They were just like Benjamin Franklin was a Rosicrucian. These guys were Masons. To them, for instance, astrology was a gentleman's art. That's why if you look at the birthday of the United States is July 4th. The elections are always on a Scorpio. The inauguration of the president was originally in the Constitution, Constitution under Pisces. But then Roosevelt didn't understand why we had to wait that long. And he obviously wasn't into astrology. So in the early days of founding of this country, including the founders, that was not considered woo woo. It was not considered kooky, you know, and the whole idea, by the way, of spirituality and religion and its role in the arc of American history among white abolitionists, the entire, you know, obviously it was a segregated movement among white Americans. The abolitionist movement emerged from early evangelical churches in New Hampshire. The suffragist movement emerged from women who were Quakers and of course Dr. King was a Baptist preacher. So in the world I lived in, talking about political things, whether it was because I was a kid in the 60s and 70s and we just all did, or even when I became a student of metaphysics and spirituality and American history, it was the most natural thing in the world. And the fact that it is not considered natural because the neoliberal establishment that runs politics and media, particularly on the left side of the aisle, won't let anything in outside their box then would be projecting onto someone like myself. She's crazy, she's kooky, she's wacky. Because they are, you know, they are tied to that box. And that box is what got us here. And I think that should be clear by now.

[A]

Absolutely. I want to ask you, have you had any Supernatural experiences yourself or paranormal? Do you have any, do you have any stories?

[B]

Yes. Although I will say this, I don't believe that anything is paranormal.

[A]

I figured you would say that, actually.

[B]

Yeah. And I think that anything that we don't, that isn't registered by science, I mean, if you read the things that Einstein said, if you talk to some serious. I mean he. And the way he was working on the unified field when he died, if you talk to any serious scientist, any serious mathematician, if you talk to people into quantum mechanics, they're saying, well, we've all been serious. The weirder it gets.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And so. Right. So it's like these people are verifying, you know, we're getting scientific verification of things that are wisdom that is thousands of years old. But if they say it, it's like, ooh, you know, and that's okay because there's one true. Spoken in many different ways. So.

[A]

Yes, because we know, we know this here. Don't worry.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

But have you, but you have, you have any ghost stories or strange things like that?

[B]

I wouldn't call ghost stories. I would call a sense of knowledge and guidance.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That absolutely was not from my rational mind. You know, I remember reading something Charlene Spretnak said. There's the word rational, there's the word irrational, and then there's the word non rational. So Western materialistic thought has projected onto anything that's non rational as irrational. But actually, like I said earlier, love restores reason and not the other way around. Going forward to just make a lot of money on ways to kill people is not ultimately rational for the human race. And a voice within you that says first you feed the babies is. The most rational thing we could do is to take care of one another. The most rational thing we could do is to move from competition to collaboration. The most rational thing we could do is to heal the earth. So what some people would call paranormal, I would call the voice of ultimate reason. And within that. Yes, I've heard stories and experienced times when. Yes, I. But most, I think most people have.

[A]

They definitely have. That's my entire job, is talking to people who have.

[B]

Yes, but most of the people, getting.

[A]

Them to talk about it. Most people don't want to, that's fine.

[B]

But this is the difference. This is the difference between most of the people you talk to and me. For whatever reason, most of the people you talk to are not vulnerable to somebody taking something I say to you. Cutting out a three second clip and just another way to make Marianne Williamson look Ridiculous today.

[A]

Got it. That's your.

[B]

And even though I'm not. Pardon?

[A]

Is that your concern right now about.

[B]

Well, no, I'm not running for anything. So not. But yeah, I would prefer not to be. No, it's not a concern. But it's an awareness. It's an awareness when you've been. When you've been through what I've been through, you're. And that's really a shame because it makes. It has so narrowed the popular discourse in America. And some of the most sophomore conversations, conversations so inadequate to the challenges of this moment, are considered serious people having serious conversations, which, by the way, is particularly interesting because they're in the background taking ketamine, too. They're in the background at therapy, too. They're the background reading all these meditations at their yoga classes, too. So the hypocrisy is something as well.

[A]

I was going to say, I mean, I could tell that you, you seem to not really like the crystal lady politician caricature that's been painted of you. Right.

[B]

Well, first of all, I'm looking around. My crystals are beautiful.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But I'm looking around my apartment and I don't see any. I've written thousands of words and I've never mentioned the word. I've given thousands of lectures. I've never mentioned the lectures. And I know the absolute wickedness of the system that came up with that and that promulgated that, you know, when you run for president, when you have been through what I've been through and you know, the level of viciousness and sophistication and money spent on and media collusion with, to make sure that anyone they do not want in the conversation will not be in the conversation, it's difficult to laugh after a certain point. I knew that neoliberalism was no match for fascism. And when you look at what's happening in this country today, the fact that that conversation was not even allowed to blow up because if it had, I think many people would have run. There are so many ways in which, if the gatekeeping class even back in 2016, had kept their hands off the scale, I don't think we would have a fascist in the White House today. And it's very difficult to look at that without deep, deep sorrow for every American. I think not every American.

[A]

But, you know, I completely understand why you feel that way. But at the same time, I just want to say that to me, I think you are really ahead of your time.

[B]

Well, you know, it's interesting.

[A]

Even though I understand how that's probably. Yeah. You know, I think you're really ahead.

[B]

Of things and thank you and I appreciate that. And I think it's worth pointing out you say that because you heard me on the stage. There were debates in 2020. CNN let me have a town hall in 2020. CNN let me be on. MSNBC let me be on. That was in 2020. And that's why you even know what I said. But there was such a, no, we're going with Biden no matter what. This political media collusion to make sure that no one else would even be allowed in the conversation. People think it was Biden deciding not to run again. It shouldn't have even mattered if Biden decided to run again. I'm old enough to remember when Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy Sr. Primarily Lyndon Johnson, he was an incumbent. The game is, in my case it was make serious people think she's such a joke. She's so kooky. She's quote unquote, anti science. So then it makes serious people think, oh, I can't go listen to her. And then there was also an irrational animus, which I'm still trying to figure out. But yes, I think it's not about me. You run for office, don't expect it to be. Don't expect certain things not to be there. But when you look at what the narrowing of the political conversation in America has done and where it has gotten us, I live in Washington and I'm not that far from the Lincoln Memorial. And if you go to the Lincoln Memorial, I'm sure you've been there. On the left side, you walk in and over on the left is the Gettysburg Address. Over on the right is the second inaugural. It is incredible that we had a president who spoke that way and what a deep speech that is and that Americans voted for that. It is deeply philosophical. It is filled with biblical reference.

[A]

All right, we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

[B]

Foreign.

[A]

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[B]

You may know me better as the voice of Bart Simpson on Simpsons Declassified, we're diving into the mysteries that keep the Simpsons forever young. Have you ever wondered how the Simpsons regularly predicts future events? Who better to ask than the show's creators, performers and writers? The celebrity guests? Be sure to follow and listen to Simpsons Declassified wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

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[B]

It's like you just get me. I feel like my true self with you. Does that sound crazy? And it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous. Okay, that's it. I'm taking you home with me. I mean, you can't find shoes this good just anywhere. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas and more at your DSW store or dsw.com.

[A]

Do you think you've seen spiritual growth in the country since the 80s or do you think it stayed the same and just repeated itself?

[B]

Well, this is what's so painful for me. Having run for office, I've run twice for president. And part of what's tragic in my mind is that the American people are not the problem. My father and I learned this from lecturing in la. All those years, my father used to say to me, talk to the smartest person on the jury. The Course in Miracles says people hear you at the level you speak to them from. If you have a deep conversation with Americans. And by the way, on the right, also, because I had so many people say I voted for Trump, but I would vote for you. If you talk to an average American audience anywhere in this country and you say, let's get deep and let's get real, the listening is there, the decency is there. And that's what's so sad to me, the American people. This did not have to happen. Somebody stoked hatred. But on the other side, there was a definite effort to make sure that anyone who could have really stoked the forces of justice and stoke the forces of love and stoke the forces of nobility were not allowed into the game. And so do I think America. I mean, obviously we're not a monolith, but do I think there's a critical mass of Americans who are decent and good? Absolutely, I do. You know, the majority has never been the issue. The majority didn't even wanna. Wanna separate from England. The majority didn't wake up one day and say, let's free the slaves. The majority didn't wake up one day and say, let's give women the right to vote. The majority didn't wake up one day and say. And say, let's desegregate the American South. It's always a critical mass. Societal change happens not on the horizontal, but on the vertical. You have a critical mass of people that changes. And that is what is so dangerous. If we had free and fair elections, I have no doubt this nightmare would be over soon. The problem is, will we have free and fair elections? And that's a big, big question mark.

[A]

Marianne, I realize that we're getting close to an hour, which I told Lauren I would keep it to, but I'm fine.

[B]

I can go if you need me.

[A]

Okay. I was going to say. I.

[B]

Please say that, because we don't know if we'll like the person.

[A]

Okay. I figure I was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm giving you the opportunity to not like me, you know? Okay. I. By the way, I totally understand you not wanting to share paranormal stories. But obviously, I got to ask.

[B]

Okay, I'll tell you.

[A]

Oh, you are going to tell me some. Okay.

[B]

I mean, I have had some, certainly in my own life, where I've felt a message of friendly crowd. By the way, everyone I know, let me tell you one that was not about me, but that, I think that always really affected me.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

This happened in about 1980, and there was a woman who came into my bookstore, and she was a very beautiful woman. And she had kind of light just streaming from her, you know, not visually, but there was just so much light and goodness. And she was beautiful, too, but she just was. There was just this great beauty. And she. For this to have happened in one life, twice. But these two things happened to this woman. She'd had a date in Seattle, Washington, and she met this guy in the library. She was a student there. And she went out on a date with him and had a good time. And after dinner, they were walking out. There was a pier, and she really liked him. And he kept saying, let's go out to the end of the pier. And something in her said, no, do not. And he kept saying, come on, we'll just walk out there. It'll be nice. The water. Something in her was, no. She said. Something in her was so intense. No, do not. Finally, he was so pushy, and she said, take me home. And her roommate said, did you have a good time at dinner? She said, yes. She said, will you go out with him again? She said, no. She never heard from him again. A few months later. And you're probably too young to remember this, but a few months later, she sees on television his little Volkswagen Bug. And it was Ted Bundy that she had had the day.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

But listen to this. That was in Seattle, I think, when I met her. She was in Houston. Several years later, or two years later, I don't know how many years later, she's living in an apartment building in Houston. And she goes into the place where the washing machines and the dryers are. A man comes in. He has a machete. And apparently on that religious holiday every year, his thing was to kill a woman. He slices her. She puts out her arm. He slices her hand. She's able to run out now. This is really incredible. She's running, literally running for her life in the middle of an apartment complex. And he's running after her with a machete. She hears a big voice in her head. Turn around. She's running for her life. But this voice says, turn around. She turns around, and the man with the machete sees something over her head. Over her head and goes like that and drops a machete and runs the other way.

[A]

Who was the guy?

[B]

Huh?

[A]

Who was the machete man?

[B]

A man who, at that particular holiday, in a particular religion. Yeah, they got him. But it must have been some kind of angel over her head that said to him, stop something, stop.

[A]

And he, like, made this face like. Like he was.

[B]

And he dropped his machete. And then, by the way, when she was rushed to the hospital in Houston, a world famous hand surgeon happened to be visiting or something and was able to put her hand together, hand back. But first of all. Well, the fact that that would happen twice in anyone's life.

[A]

I know. Does she have the worst luck or the best luck?

[B]

Well, she was a beautiful woman. It was a. Look, I don't even remember her name. And this was in 1980 that this happened.

[A]

The FBI should just assign somebody to follow her around to, like, catch the.

[B]

Well, I hope she lived to have a beautiful life.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

She was beautiful. But I thought that was so amazing because he had a very perverted notion of his religion, obviously. But then he saw an angel, so he had. He saw something over her head. Another time, I was at a. So fascinating. It was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it was in the 1970s, and I was at a grocery store, and I saw a young woman with a little baby, maybe a year old, two years old. Must probably two years old because he was sometimes in a. In a grocery cart. There'll be a little baby sitting up. And I looked. I'm just looking. I'm just a grocery store, and I don't normally see this kind of thing. And there is light streaming out of the head of this baby. There is this light, just light streaming out of this baby. And so I look at his mother, like, shocked, and she's like a young woman. And you know how she looked at me when I did that? This is what she did.

[A]

Yeah. For anyone listening to the podcast, she is making it look like. Can you believe it?

[B]

Well, I don't know.

[A]

Like, he does this.

[B]

I've always thought about that, who that baby turned out to be. Yeah.

[A]

Do you have any. Do you have any other stories that you've even heard? Like, you're an amazing storyteller, by the way.

[B]

Well, I had a. One of my closest friends died a couple weeks ago.

[A]

My condolences.

[B]

Pardon? Yeah. Thank you. He was a very good man. Thank you. And one of our mutual friends told me the day after she said, marianne, I saw Bruce on The edge of my couch. When I woke up from my dream, from a nap today. She said he was like sitting on the edge of the couch. And I said, well, was he looking at you? She said, no, he was looking to the side. And she said it was about two or three seconds. And I said, well, he hasn't come to me. Why doesn't he come to me? And the next morning I woke up. Oh, and I have another one to tell you. The next morning I woke up and it's like I felt him all over the room. And he was also a student of the Course in Miracles. And one of the main themes of the Course in Miracles is the phrase, there is no death, the son of God is free. And he was just like my room was just vibrating with him. And I said, what, what, what? He said, there is no death. There is no death. And it was so intense that I was a little bit like, well, what do you want me to do with that? You know? He said, I don't know, just know it. And then it sort of disappeared.

[A]

Huh.

[B]

And there was another one. I was going to tell you, oh, many years ago, but this would have been in the 90s. I had a very close friend and he used to. He used to email me and align. Yeah, well, this part I'll save for the punchline. Sure. He died suddenly of a heart attack. And that night I had a dream. And in the dream the phone rang and he said. And I picked it up and he went, hi, it's me. And it was so real. And I sat up like that, like. Because it was so real. He said, hi, it's me. It was almost like a sense that he was almost like when you're in a prison or something and somebody allows you to make a phone call. It wasn't a sense he was in a prison, but he'd been allowed to make a call. He said, hi, it's me. And I woke up and I'm like. Cause he had died, right? And it was so real. A few weeks later, I'm sitting at my desk and I had told my assistant when I found out that he had died, I said, please go into my computer and whatever emails I got from Walter, would you please save them for me? Because, you know, I want to have those. And so I'm twiddling, I think I'm on the phone, I'm twiddling with these papers. And I opened this folder and it was my email's from Walter. The email he wrote me right before he got on a plane. And Then he went someplace else and he had the heart attack at the airport. He said, same message. So glad we landed at the. In the same town at the same time. Wherever I am tonight, I'll try to call you.

[A]

Interesting. Wow, that's spooky.

[B]

Wherever I am tonight, I'll try to call you.

[A]

You know, I don't think I would ever ask another interview subject this, but I feel like you'd be very capable of handling this question. What do you think happens to us after we die?

[B]

I don't think we die. I think the body is like a suit of clothes. The Course in Miracles says physical birth is not the beginning, but the continuation of your life. Physical death is not the end, but the continuation of your life. I think we are creations of God. What God creates is eternal. That energy cannot be destroyed. So I think after we die, like I said, we realize there is no death. We take off a suit of clothes and the Course in Miracles says death is not the punishment, death is the reward. And we will, as we evolve as a species, we will. Which hopefully we'll have the opportunity to do. There will come a time. The Course in Miracles talks about a concept that's spoken of elsewhere in metaphysics, of the great rays. That's why you see a halo around Jesus. You see a halo around Buddha, right? And saints and so forth. Well, that's the light, the great rays. Some people see them. I rarely have an experience like that, but many people do. The Course in Miracles says as we shift that enlightenment is a shift from body identification to spirit identification. And as we make this evolutionary shift, which is the only portal out of the mess we're in, by the way, we will see such light around each other that the body itself will seem more shadowy. So that then when we hear that someone dies, all it will mean is that there's less shadow. You know, it's interesting as I was speaking about my friend Bruce who died a couple weeks ago and I'm officiating at his memorial a week from today. And I was thinking about what I'm going to be saying and so forth. And I was thinking about an experience that I'm having with him that I'm sure everybody who loved him is having. I'm seeing some things about his life and my relationship to him more clearly now. And I think that often happens when people die. We see them more clearly when they're physically gone. So much of the illusions and non essentials and unimportant things of life fall away with the earthly body. And you are More aware than, quote, unquote, normal perception allows us to be what that person really meant, what their life meant, what they were doing in this life, who they were to you, you know them more deeply.

[A]

It's really interesting, especially because, because of the show, I've spoken to several people who have medically died and then come back and had like near death experiences. And that's really shifted and evolved my opinion on all of this.

[B]

And I've met a couple people too.

[A]

Yeah, I'm sure you have. Yeah. And raised many more questions about what consciousness is.

[B]

Of course, to me, it's not a question.

[A]

What do you think it is?

[B]

It's an eternal creation. It's an idea in the mind of God. This body is, like I said, a suit of clothes. And I think Jesus, when he said, those who believe in me shall not know death. I think what that meant is when we see whether you call it the Christ mind, the Shekinah, the Buddha mind, whether you think of these things in secular terms, in religious, spiritual terms, that's really what's going on on the planet. Now that there's one truth, you can get there, quantum mechanics, you can get there through the Kabbalah. It's one truth. And within that truth is the realization that there is a perception of ultimate reality. And the reason you don't fear death in that place is because you see in that realm that that's the only reality of life and that life does not stop. What I experience about what I feel about death is what I know a lot of people feel. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of death. I'm afraid of pain. I'm afraid of certain ways of going. But that's different than being afraid of death. And I have seen because of my work, beginning with aids, but also with so much of my career as well as my. My personal life and that, you know, I'm an older woman at this point, so I, you know, I've. You People start to leave at a certain age. It's more common. You see things there are certain. There's a man named David Kessler who you probably had on your program.

[A]

I haven't had. I'm aware.

[B]

Yeah, he's a good friend. He's one of the godparents of my daughter and he wrote a book about the common visions people see and it's people, relatives coming. My grandmother definitely used to talk about my grandfather and her parents who would come and stand at the end of the bed. She talked about that a lot before she died. But another one that David talks about in his book is modes of transportation. Like, there was one young man who died of aids. And one of the things that would happen that does happen with death quite a bit is that the day before they die, they're up and normal and everything's cool.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard that before.

[B]

That's interesting. And I went to visit him at the hospital. He said, marianne, did you see that she. That long boat in front of the hospital? And I was too dumb. I was too dumb at the time to know, to just go, oh, yeah, it was amazing. I said, no, I didn't see one. He said, marianne, come on. It's ridiculous. It's right there. You couldn't have missed it. And he was talking to me just like he's. I'm talking to you like, oh, come on, Marianne. Totally normal. He said, you come to the front of the hospital. It's so big, you can't not see it. And he was explaining to me. And then as my life went on, I realized how common that was. Also my sister. My sister's death, it doesn't happen all the time, but it happened with her. And I've seen it around others. The day before she died, well, I was with her, it was four days before, and she's sitting up, and there was a light surrounding her. She was just in this Buddha zone, this absolute Buddha zone. And my brother was at the foot of the bed, and I was next to her, sitting there. And I start crying. And I had this. And this goes back to what I was saying before. Sometimes death you see what's important. In fact, it's more than once in the Course in Miracles, where it says, you can see these things at the point of death, or you can see them now. So I start crying, and I'm saying to my sister, I had this realization that my brother and my sister and I, the way I put it, we forgot to be. We forgot to be siblings. Like, I got the profundity of the fact that we had been siblings. I saw it in that moment. And I. You know, we were living lives where if I had said to my sister 10 years before, 5 years before, why don't you and Peter and I have dinner this week? What are you talking. I'm going to have dinner with you. Mary and I have children at home. Why would I go have dinner? You know, it's that kind of thing. What are you going to have dinner? And I got it. I got that there was this incredible thing, which is that we are Incarnate as siblings. I just got how profound it was. And I'm crying. And my brother. I look over my brother, he just nods his head. And she said, it's okay. Where we get it now. And in that moment of maybe two minutes, maybe five minutes, there was this experience of the three of us and this feeling like we forgot to do that. My sister also, when she died, and my sister was a very traditional thinker, although she said at the very end she made a comment, Marianne was right, because I was the, you know, you know, whatever. We bring her home, her husband brought her home. And my brother and I are standing with her. She's looking out from her bedroom window. My father walks in and she says, daddy, I want to go home. And my brother said, little sister, we brought you home. You're home. You're home, Jane, you're home, you're home. Meaning we had brought her back to the house. And she looked at us and she gave us the most withering look, like, why don't we stop pretending now? And she said, this isn't home. And in that moment when somebody speaks from that place, you know their rights.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, this isn't home. This. This coffee cup, this. No, this isn't home. But that doesn't mean it's not a beautiful place. And that we. It can't, as the Course in Miracles says, grow so close, your thinking can become so purified, you can. The Course in Miracles says, enlightenment is a shift in self perception from body identification to spirit identification. And you can get. So you can get to the highest level of thinking of which the worldly ego is capable. And it says, God himself at that point will lift you up. And that's, of course, the picture of, you know, man and God in the Sistine Chapel.

[A]

I was going to say, I was just talking to somebody for the show about how being around somebody that is near death creates. It's almost like you step into an alternate reality where everything's a little different. And I know people, when they hear that, they're thinking, oh, it's a mental. You're in a different mental state. But no, I genuinely believe that. Like, I don't know, maybe that sounds kooky, but, like, everything is different. Things around you, even unrelated to it, just weird things starts happening to you. Like, almost like you're in a David lynch movie all of a sudden. Like, things start happening where you're just like, am I crazy? Or is everybody. Are things different right now? You know, it really does feel like you step through this Screen almost and things you're in like a little bubble that's slightly different.

[B]

You know what? It's very similar to when babies are born.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Babies? Well, yeah, I don't know yet. Yeah. Sunrise is called the magic hour and sunset is called the magic hour. Those are the two times in nature when it's the most mystical feeling outside. Right as the sun is rising and right as the sun is setting. And the same with death. You're right. It's a magical death and birth both. And it's very sad how in our society, because of all the reasons you and I have talked about today, has such a hard time, has such a hard time allowing for the magic that could be there. My friend Bruce, who I mentioned to you, passed a couple weeks ago. The last two days before his death, there were eight of us, close friends and family who were around him constantly for two days. And I have to give a shout out of kudos to the people at Memorial Sloan Ketting in New York. I'm not usually a total fan of the hospital industrial complex, but the respect and compassion shown there. So it was holy. It's really what you're saying. It was a holy time. And those of us who went through that together. It's like I talked about during aids. We can't promise who's going to live and who's going to die, but we can promise nobody here is going to die alone and nobody here is going to go through this without love and miraculous.

[A]

Have you had any experiences with people you know or yourself around birth? I'd never heard that before of the same strange bubble occurring.

[B]

I had a baby.

[A]

Yeah. Did anything unusual happen to you?

[B]

Oh, sure. The whole. There's a great movement, you know, with midwives and people who. Yes, absolutely. You know, birth is. We've come a long way. Yes, we have come a long way. And there are many people now who. I'll tell you something about my daughter. I have two little grandbabies and my daughter had an experience that I bet so many people are having now. I bet you. And I'll tell you what it is and you'll know why. So her water broke and there were things that they didn't expect. And the doctor said, no, we got to take this baby. And he says to my son in law, we're going in there now. And my son in law said, can I go to the bathroom? He said, I'd rather you not. We gotta go in there now. And my son in law says, wait, wait. She wants her Taylor Swift. She wants Taylor Swift to be playing and the doctor. Just the doctor just like, ugh. Right. And I thought about that. I can't even imagine how many women are giving birth now to Taylor Swift, because I wonder how many babies are being born now. Because for that to be the case with my daughter, I thought was very funny.

[A]

She didn't get to do it. They wouldn't let her do it.

[B]

No, they had to go faster. They had to go faster. Actor. Just like for your Taylor Swift album.

[A]

To me, that sounds like a good idea in theory, but then in practice, when you're in so much pain, it might ruin the music for you forever.

[B]

Well, it depends. No, some people are in labor for hours, so I guess it depends in people both ways. I mean, it's very common that a woman is, you know, she gets, you know, whether it's the candles or the music that's going to be playing while I'm in labor. I think it's common enough. But I just thought it was funny that it was Taylor Swift because it occurred to me that there are probably a lot of young women in the world who probably a lot of babies.

[A]

Being named Taylor right now.

[B]

Well, she was named after James Taylor.

[A]

Really?

[B]

I read that. Yeah.

[A]

Interesting. You know what something a major theme in your work and sort of similar to what we're talking about, too, that, like, when major changes are taking place in your life or, you know, the way you talk about miracles. Right? Like huge shifts, how strange things can happen, or like a strange feeling. Do you know what I'm talking about? Am I making sense? This is something that I've experienced myself, which I think, for me, I'm an outsider to this stuff, or at least I was. I did. Never thought I would be hosting a podcast like this, but for me, I have noticed that, like, in major periods of change in my life or creativity, it feels similarly like I stepped into this other place and almost feel a little, like, raw and like insane. You almost question, you know, I'm saying, like a little wiry.

[B]

I think the whole country is going through that right now.

[A]

That's it. That's in a bad way. I'm meaning in a good way.

[B]

No, I think it. Ultimately, it's.

[A]

Ultimately, you think it's the same.

[B]

Well, we're being shocked into reality. It's like, this is serious. This is adult stuff. This is not cheap yellow smiley face time. Yes. And I think that it's. When you're. It's a shock to the system is really what you're saying, is what I hear you saying, sure. And when that kind of shock to the system happens, the light comes in. And I think that people without a meditative or spiritual or psychotherapeutic something practice are having a particular hard time because people don't know what to do with the recalibration. But if you see it as a necessary evolution that something was so off the course in miracles says it's not up to you what you learn. It's merely whether you learn through joy or through pain. The United States was going in the wrong direction for too long and something was gonna. Something had to give and something had to give. But if you see it, whether it's, you know, the alcoholic bottoming out or the drug addict bottoming out, that's not really the end. Your ego screams, this is the end, but it's really the beginning. I believe that this is a not only a self organizing, but a self correcting universe. And I think that if we are truly open, it's like these experiences that you're talking about, a lot of it just has to do with receptivity and availability. If you're receptive and available to see the miracles that are all around you, they're more visible to you. If you are aware and if you just say, just in case it works, I'm gonna say a little prayer. And then you see things kind of start changing and you go, whoa. Well, that was interesting. If you're aware and you're willing to step out of the matrix, as it were, if you're willing to just step out of this box that we've been taught that's all that life is, now that it is so. And we were taught that by people who said, you need to live within that box. And now we see where it has gotten us. Yeah, I think people are like, there must be another way, there must be a better way. And the course in miracles says that's when your life really begins to, to change. And I think all of us are freaked out by circumstances right now. But I think people with any kind of a background in metaphysics or spirituality, we're as freaked out as everybody else. But we have a context which views this as a possible portal and evolutionary change. I mean, what happened to the human race is what happens to any species when its collective behavioral patterns become maladaptive for its survival. And what happens in any species is at that point there will either be a mutation and then enough members of the species go in the direction of mutation that there's an evolution or the species goes extinct. And I Think we need to get out of our magical thinking. You know, it's like the alcoholic who thinks this can continue forever, or the drug addict says they can continue forever. Somebody who loves them stages an intervention because it actually can't continue forever. That kind of in moderation. And I think that people are realizing that about the. Certainly about our democracy, but even about the species. This is not guaranteed survival here, everybody. And so this is a critical moment of evolutionary possibility, and I do believe in that. The Course in Miracles says there is no order of difficulty in miracles. And if enough of us are open, you know, it's like at the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous, my life has become unmanageable. When we get off our high horse and realize that we didn't, we're not doing so well here, and there's a possibility of another way, then all kinds of amazing things are going to happen. And I think in ways we don't necessarily see and that are not necessarily public, those wonderful things are happening already.

[A]

That is very optimistic, and I like to hear that. I'm going to ask you one more question. If you could get one message to everyone in the world and have it be completely understood, do you know what that would be?

[B]

Let's have some mercy on ourselves. Let's have some mercy on each other. Let's try to forgive each other. Let's get about the work of creating a more beautiful world, not just in talk, but in our own individual lives as best we can. And I think that's the message we all want to hear, and it's the message we all believe in at the deepest level. And that's what, having traveled the world as much as I have, has given me, where everybody's the same. You look at Ukraine, you look at Russia, you look at Palestine, you look at Israel, you look at China, you look at the United States. This is governments. This is governments who are doing all this evil, wicked stuff, because people are just people, and we all want the same thing, and we all want to love one another. And the fact that we have allowed a prevailing thought system to call that unsophisticated. Let me tell you what's unsophisticated. They call that naive. I'll tell you what's naive. Naive is thinking that we will survive on this planet for another hundred years if we don't at least try to make love. The bottom line.

[A]

Wow. Marianne Williamson, thank you so much for coming on and talking to me. This has been amazing. It's been so good to meet you.

[B]

Oh, thank you. It's great to meet you too. And I wish you the very best and thank you for having me.

[A]

Do you have. I know that you have a substack.

[B]

Yeah. Mariannewilliamson.substack.com and also for people who like the purely spiritual stuff, go to marianne.com Excellent. And on my substack, it's all there. Whatever. I'm out there, people can find me. Thank you. And I'm going to be in la, by the way. I will be giving a workshop in Los Angeles towards the end of October, October 25th, I think. So if your audience is a lot of la, then.

[A]

Oh, it's a lot of la. I mean, yeah, I might be there too.

[B]

Great. Thank you. Look at my events page, marianne.com thank you so much. Thank you so much. All my best to you.

[A]

Thank you so much to Marianne Williamson for coming on the show and talking to me. If you want more from Marianne, she has a substack and her website is marianne.com youm can also read her many books. I personally suggest listening to the audiobook version of A Return to Love because Marianne reads it herself in the audiobook and she has such a great way of doing speaking, as you just heard. It adds a whole other layer to the experience of that book. By the way, I posted a video version of this interview. It's up on our Patreon if you want to check that out. Thank you again to Marianne Williamson and thank you for listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. This episode was edited by myself and engineered by Theo Shafer. Our associate producers are Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Our artwork is by Cul de Sac Studios. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a [e-mail] Otherworld Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five star review and telling your friends about the show. Our social media is otherworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odysee. Leah Rhys, Dennis, Rob Mirandi, Eric Donnelly, Maura Curran, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor, Michael Lavey, Josephina Francis and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you can send us your [e-mail].

[B]

Sam.