The GREAT AWAKENING: Marianne Williamson DARES to EXPOSE the DARK FORCES Truly Running the WORLD!

Marianne Williamson 0:00
Those truths are our common sense. The problem is the world we live in, mitigates against our remembering what is common sense? It's not common sense that we that we kill each other the way we do is that common sense that we're destroying the planet. It's not common sense that we're not feeding the children, you know what I'm saying? So the court says that the, the truth of who we are, is love. And when we are in our right mind, you know, Gandhi once said, The problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind. The right mind, the righteous mind means the right use of the mind is love. That who you are as love that you are here to love. And the Course in Miracles says that the world we live in, is dominated and has been dominated.

Alex Ferrari 0:54
I like to welcome to the show, Marianne Williamson, how you doing, Marianne?

Marianne Williamson 0:54
I'm doing well. Thank you. Thank you for having me on your show.

Alex Ferrari 1:11
Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I've been a fan of yours. For quite some time I saw you speak. I think it was in 2020 at Mindvalley. In LA, in LA Yeah, with Vishen. So I remember really being moved by what you were saying there. So I'm really excited to, to talk to you. So my very first question is, what was the pivotal point in your life that led you down a spiritual path, or at least exploring the spiritual path?

Marianne Williamson 1:42
You know, I don't really subscribe to the Eureka theory. spiritual evolution, I, first of all, I want to say I think everybody's on a spiritual path. Most people just know it. That's really all it is. I just matured, as a person went through things as a person, no different than anyone else. I'm just sort of a normal quality of what it really is about to me is more attractive than this idea of, oh, I got it. Because I, you know, every, every moment you either get it or you don't, hardly an enlightened Master, what I did, like everyone else was go through enough experiences where I sort of crashing into walls. And you start to, you know, you start to learn, well, maybe that's not the way to do it. You know, the Course in Miracles says, not up to you what you learn, it's merely up to you, whether you learn through joy, or through pain. And I like everyone got to a point where learning through pain was just too painful. Now, if that I don't still learn to pain sometime, but I don't do it. I do it where there's a genuine blind spot. And I I just don't get it until it's over. As opposed to the way I used to just sort of irresponsibly to, you know, when I was young, just behave so recklessly, with myself and with others, perhaps.

Alex Ferrari 3:13
Now, you mentioned the Course in Miracles. Can you explain what the Course in Miracles, what what it is and where it came from, for people who are not familiar with it.

Marianne Williamson 3:20
The Course in Miracles is a system it's been referred to as a system of spiritual self study program of spiritual psychotherapy. What's important to remember is it's not a religion. It's a psychological mind training, in relinquishing thoughts of fear and accepting thoughts of love. It's based on universal spiritual themes, I think of truth with a capital T as one. But there are many different religions, many different paths, many different myths, some spiritual, some religious, some secular paths that point to the heart, and that we connect us to a to a more heart centered way of life. So the Course of Miracles isn't any better or worse than any other book or teaching. But it was one that made a tremendous difference in my life. And then I started lecturing on those books, and then wrote a book based on it and then had a writing career that came from that, and a nonprofit activist career that grew out of the talks that I gave and all that kind of thing.

Alex Ferrari 4:22
Where did the Course of Miracles come from? Like, who wrote it?

Marianne Williamson 4:26
To a clinical psychology professors at Columbia University, between 1966 and 1971, which 1965 I think, which fascinates me because that the period of time and then with all the student turmoil at Columbia University, so right around the corner, from low library that they the students, you know, they they occupied it, and right around the corner. So I've always found that quite fascinating.

Alex Ferrari 4:55
Now, I've heard from my understanding that that Jesus was involve or Jesus's teachings are involved in Course of Miracles. Is that accurate? Isn't that accurate?

Marianne Williamson 5:05
Well, you would have to answer the question for yourself. When and if you read the book, there is no author lift listed on the cover of the book. Now, sometimes you you see that today, it's not even that uncommon. But at that time when I first saw the course in the mid 70s, no, no author like what is this? The the power of the book does not lie in who you think, wrote it. The power of the book lies in whether or not you practice the principles, and the principles or the universal principles and all the great religious systems of the world, whether or not you're forgiving, whether or not you choose to look at someone's innocence rather than their guilt. Whether or not you choose to realize that only what you are not giving can be lacking in any situation, whether or not you're willing to take 100% responsibility for your own experience. Whether or not you choose to think there is a guidance system, an internal guidance system, a radar of the heart, that is a part of the mind that truly knows more than you do. When you are locked within a limited, constricted frame of conference of of, of reference based on your sense of yourself as separate from others separate from a higher power separate from the earth, things that we all, you know, you read enough books, you get what the principles are, then the point has to do with the often very difficult path of practically applying them to our daily circumstances. And one of the things about the course it's so fantastic is that there's a workbook. So if you just read the text, you become very, you know, sophisticated and your ability to articulate spiritual principles that if anybody can tell you, that's the least of it. It's me. If it was as simple as that, I probably be, you know, but it's not. It's, we are all confronted every really minute, every hour of our day of our lives to you know, every every situation. And this is from the course it says Every situation is a lesson faithfully rehearsed. So everything that happens, you've been here before? And how to play it last time. We're good, be at least that good this time. Were you not? Not your best? Okay, got a chance to make it up do it better this time.

Alex Ferrari 7:31
Simple as that. So when you were first introduced to the book, what was it like when you first started reading that first time when you started reading the book, what happened to you that these words out of all the spiritual texts in the world really drew you in what was about this, this information and the way was presented that brought you in and really you dedicated your much of your life to these teachings.

Marianne Williamson 7:59
The image I had was imagine a huge cathedral. And in front of the huge cathedral are these stone steps, big tall Tomes, stone steps, I have read a lot. Like you said, I'd read many books. And I felt that I was trying to get into the cathedral. And I was climbing up those steps. And sometimes my elbows were bloodied. My knees were bloodied, I get trying to get up there. But I had this recurring image. And the recurring image was that I got to the top of the steps, and there are these big doors at the front of the cathedral. And I started trying to get in, and it's locked. I was at the Cathedral, I was making every effort to climb. But once I got there, the door was locked. And what the Course gave me was the realization that the key is in how I think of and treat other people, the person right in front of you. I'm not saying that's the first place where I read it. But it's the first place where I got it. That was the first people, other people, other people, other people.

Alex Ferrari 9:09
And the ideas that are presented in the Course of Miracles are just the simple truths that are common in all great spiritual traditions around the world, correct?

Marianne Williamson 9:22
Absolutely. And those truths are our common sense. The problem is the world we live in, mitigates against our remembering what is common sense? It's not common sense that we that we kill each other the way we do. Right? It's not common sense that we're destroying the planet. It's not common sense that we're not feeding the children, you know what I'm saying? So the court says that the truth of who we are is love and when we are in our right mind, you know, Gandhi once said, The problem with the world is that you Man, it is not in its right mind, the right mind, the righteous mind means the right use of the mind is loves that who you are as love that you are here to love. And the Course in Miracles says that the world we live in, is dominated and has been dominated for a very, very, very long time, by a thought system based on fear, right, which is the absence of love. So the Course in Miracles says it enlightenment light means understanding, coming to understand is a process not of learning, but of unlearning, unlearning, fear. You know, I have a seven and a half month old granddaughter, and watching the baby. They haven't experienced lovelessness yet. You know, just her beaming of, of joy and laughter and she hasn't seen anything else. Yeah. Another one, I noticed this with her body. I'll notice when my daughter sends me pictures of her husband holding the baby, and, and how the baby just like lies back in her father's arms. She clearly her body has no defensiveness yet has no experience any cellular sense of what can be dangerous. It's so magnificent.

Alex Ferrari 11:24
Yeah, it's, sometimes animals have that as well, there's a pure, there's a purity and an innocence to them, that they've never had anyone mistreat them. So they are. They're just completely trusting. And children are like that. Until, if and when until something happens. That changes their programming and their association to the world. What advice would you have for people that are that their their programming, their framing of reality is based on fear, and that they see everything with a fearful lens. How can they break free from that, and open into a world of love?

Marianne Williamson 12:09
Well, all of us to some extent, by the chains of fear, sure, all of us. And the greatest way that we can, you know, the Course in Miracles says to teach is to demonstrate the greatest way you can help free someone else from their own fear is to free yourself from yours. It's a full time job, monitoring our own process. The ego mind is very big on looking at other people where you know they're not doing it right. Or our job is to make sure that we are.

Alex Ferrari 12:47
In the time that you've been, you know, from when you discovered these teachings to where you are now. Even in my in my lifetime, I have seen humanity shift consciousness rise, from my point of view, things that were completely acceptable in the 50s 60s and 70s. Now are not there is an evolution. Where do you where do you see our consciousness going? Do you agree with that statement that humanity is kind of evolving and hopefully raising their consciousness into a level of love.

Marianne Williamson 13:24
I think humanity is evolving and de evolving simultaneously. I think there are two parallel universes. One world is crumbling, one world is falling apart. And as it does, a lot of people who are attached to that reality is the only reality are experiencing absolutely more fear, and a holding on even more tightly. So as that world crumbles, there's even greater fear. Simultaneously. There's a new world struggling to be born, the rising that you're talking about. So it's like we're called to be both death, doulas and birth, doulas to help one world that needs a pass away, pass away more gently, and another world come come forth. Now. Even within this phase of consciousness rising, whoever we are, wherever we are, including a movement. What's the work of the moment now? I've written 15 books and I was like an early like pioneer and those books and all that kind of stuff. So I've watched a trajectory. I think that there has been a rising up of easy spirituality, spirituality that might not be easy in terms of the inner work that we have to do. But there's no spiritual or religious tradition anywhere. That gives any of us a pass on addressing the suffering of other sentient beings. So I think that there's a way in which the spiritual higher consciousness community sound capitalism?

Alex Ferrari 15:02
Stop it, Marianne, stop it really shocking.

Marianne Williamson 15:05
And there's that limit where people supposedly talking about spiritual things, don't want to say anything that might, might hurt their brand, let's say. So, I think even in this world, where things are rising, we always have to look within ourselves for where the temptation is to lower

Alex Ferrari 15:30
Any of these dictators of the last 150 years, in any of the World Wars. What, instead of looking at them, we have to look at the environment that allowed someone like them to come up. That's and that's a, that's a much different, much more difficult question. Because it look, it looks inward at you, you start pointing back at you and your community and the world, as opposed to focusing all the wrongs on a person. Does that make sense?

Marianne Williamson 16:00
Well, yes, of course. However, even where it's not difficult, there is resistance to doing it. Because if you really learn the lesson of that history, which once again, might not be so difficult in certain cases, to learn that history and to apply the lesson would be to upset the applecart of how you're feeling. I'll give you an example. After World War One, and contrary to the, to the expressed opinion of our own President Woodrow Wilson, allies made reparations, or Germany after the war, Deutsche Mark, do we tell you to stop? Basically, we crushed the Allies crushed the German people, the German people being so crushed, became an easy targets for Adolf Hitler. We didn't make that mistake. After World War Two, we had learned the lesson, the Marshall Plan, help Japan get back on its feet help Germany get back on its feet. A vanquished enemy is dangerous, large groups of desperate people are dangerous. Now, History says that history says that large groups of desperate people in such examples as I just gave you, by the way, Gaza is another example. We have the examples, large groups of desperate people become a petri dish, out of which all manner of societal and personal dysfunction are almost inevitable. And that includes it illogical capture by genuinely psychotic forces. I read an interview you with Jared Kushner, it was after they'd been elected. And it was I think it was in Rolling Stone magazine. And he said that he was at a McDonald's with his father in law. And he looked around the restaurant and he said to his father in law, there are a lot of angry people in this country. And we could harness all of that and make you president to many people whose it's not working. And that's what Franklin Roosevelt said. He said, we would not have to worry about a fascist takeover. As long as democracy delivered on its promises. There are too many people for whom democracy did not deliver, deliver, and it has not and is not delivering on its promises.

Alex Ferrari 18:26
No, but let's go back to the Course in Miracles. What are what is one of the biggest misconceptions that people have of the Course in Miracles that you would love to just say,

Marianne Williamson 18:40
It's not a religion, there's no doctrine, there's no dogma, nothing like that. It's written with a tone of just thought you might like to know, you know, the idea here is that we know that there are objective, discernible laws of the external world, let's say, if I if I open my hand right now, this glass will fall to the table, possibly break.

Alex Ferrari 19:03
If you believe gravity, if you believe gravity is a law.

Marianne Williamson 19:07
That's kind of my points. If I, if I say that to you don't say oh, she has so much faith in the power of gravity, it's really moving. I don't have gravity, I know the power of gravity. The idea here is that there are objective discernible laws of internal phenomenon, such as cause and effect, cause and effect on the outside and cause an effect on the inside. So it's simply not trying to tell you that you should believe that every thought creates form. On some level, it's just thought you might like to know. So there's no doctor, no dogma, but there is a profound articulation of principles of the mind. And when you're talking about the principles of the mind, and you're talking about principles of the spirit, they're ultimately the same thing, because the Spirit is the loving mind. So to say that you are spirit is to say the truth of who you are, is your loving mind.

Alex Ferrari 20:08
You mentioned a term that I absolutely love the easy spiritual spirituality, and the, the how spirituality has found commerce in many ways, you know, being in this space and speaking to so many people in this spiritual space. And just being a part of the spiritual community for the last 30 years, buying books, buying courses, things like that. There's a lot of sales have like, quick and easy spirituality. But when you start to read the deeper books, the deeper teachings of That's right, what it really takes the inner work the hard work, what can you talk to people, what can you say to people who have might have fallen in the trap of easy spirituality, and the ego trap of spirituality saying, I'm more spiritual than you, I'm the most spiritual. It's like, I'm the humble, I'm the humblest that you've ever met.

Marianne Williamson 21:07
Spiritual superiority is a real shadow elements, the I doubt I'm spiritual, and you're not. And that leads you by the way to a forgiveness. That's not true forgiveness. You're a jerk, but I'm spiritual, so I forgive you. Whereas the Course in Miracles would say that real forgiveness is realizing the innocent in you is the truth of who you are. Because that's who God created you to be. The innocent in me is the truth of who I am. Because God is that is how God created me to be that nothing you've ever done. That is not love, is the truth of who you are, or even has ultimate effect, if I am willing to let it go. That's at work. You know, there's a line in the course do you prefer to be right or to be happy? You almost feel it to forgive another person that way to say, well, it genuinely doesn't matter what you did. Because if it's not love, it will not have ultimate and permanent effect unless I hold on to it. Boy, there's profound ego resistance to that. But the Course in Miracles says your good intentions are not enough. Your willingness is everything. So that's the course are you willing? Are you willing, I'm willing to see this differently? Are you willing to see the innocence in your brother, because the core says if you bring the focus on someone's guilt that you had five minutes ago, into the present, then you're going to create a future. That is a reflection of your belief in that person's guilt. And if I believe in their guilt, then I will experience the world in which their guilt affected me the Course in Miracles says you are heir to the laws of the of the world that you believe in. So I can I can do that. And also, you can get a lot of approval and support these days for playing your violin. Let me tell you how wounded I was. traumatized, that was, you know, we can all do that. But there's a point at which processing those things become spewing is the point where learning from all those things become self indulgence. The issue is the alchemy of spiritual transformation, the work of atoning for our own mistakes, forgiving others for there's also, you know, one of the big ones tied to that is, of course, that you have to take 100% responsibility for your own life experience. And if you don't, then the price you will pay is that you won't be able to change it to I'll give you an example. When I was talking to you over the last three minutes, I was thinking about someone. However, then when I said Yeah, and take full responsibility, which is what was your point on that? Why was your space even vulnerable to that person's entrance? At what point did you allow yourself to counter your own knowing? And in that place where you felt you had no choice? Let's look at that again. Might you have to what extent did you give something over? You know, it's always so easy to make it about their guilt, rather than how they even get in the room, or whatever. And so that goes back to what we were saying before every everything that happens is perfect for what we need to learn.

Alex Ferrari 24:36
Well, you but Marianne you're asking people to take, you know, responsibility of their own lives. That seems a lot.

Marianne Williamson 24:44
I don't know, in my own life experience. She failed to do so just means I just keep hitting. Once again, you just will keep the same situations in different towns and people until we learn it because that's all that's going on here. So Getting the spiritual path whether you think you're on one or not, life is confronting you constantly with the lessons of self actualization.

Alex Ferrari 25:09
So yeah, so when you were sort of like when we were younger, and let's say we were dating the wrong person, and it just kept coming again and again, and the same things, the same elements that you didn't, like, kept showing up in people you were dating, and I always just, I used to tell people, Hey, is it? Is it them? Or is it time to like, maybe you're the common denominator in this?

Marianne Williamson 25:30
Yeah, sometimes it's just going back to the same person. Once you know, it's not going to be any different, which also is relevant to why would you vote for Biden or Trump? Again, it's no different. It works collectively the same way. All the politicians who are presenting a certain system do, it's like a boyfriend who cheats on you. And every four years, they come back, I'll be ready. Give me one more chance. You know, I was saying to somebody the other day, you know, so many of us on our individual in our individual lives, we've all read the same books. Now. We've all listened to the same tapes stand for an abusive relationship, and I'm not I'm gonna set boundaries, and I'm not gonna stay in that toxic relationship. Oh, really? Then why are you remaining in that relationship, the abusive relationship you have with a government that is enabling food companies, big food companies to send agenda in your food? What could be a more abusive relationship? And that you continue to vote for them? Well, I, you know, I think so much of what the personal growth and recovery and higher consciousness and spiritual and wellness community has learned, even though it has kept itself sort of apolitical. I always feel like we're the last people who should be sitting out those questions. Because if you have a clue of how those internal dynamics happened in one person's life, you're the one who knows what to change how to change the world, because all of the country, the group of people, it's the same principle being played out collectively,

Alex Ferrari 27:03
Are these the systems that are stuck to the old ways and holding on and kind of like the last death rattle of what's happening, whether it's food, whether it's government, whether it's the medical industry, whether it's pharmaceutical industry, whether it's all of that stuff, these are these old systems that are not serving the people anymore, and honestly, having served the people for quite some time, and these new systems are starting to come up, but they're trying to fight against it.

Marianne Williamson 27:31
Even very literally look at Big Oil, they've known for decades, they've known for decades, this damage would be here. And they know now that this fossil fuel extraction stuff is you know, it's on its way out, ultimately, but they want to squeeze every last squeeze every last dollar out, before something happens. And what should happen in my belief is an American president who says it stops here.

Alex Ferrari 28:00
Or someone figures out free energy of some sort, you know, technology, someone who figures out free energy of some sort some sort of technology, that

Marianne Williamson 28:09
Unless it makes them money, that wasn't we have the people who understand technologically how to do it, we do not lack the knowledge. And by the way, that's not just in green energy that's in everything. Now you go back to the world falling apart the world struggling to be born, we have in every single area, food, agriculture, education, business, energy, world effect, we have everything we have in every field, either here, or in somewhere else in the world, but a lot here as well. The people who are already demonstrating a new kind of best practices, who are already demonstrating the alternative to the old way. The problem is that the people with those solutions don't have the power. And the people with the power don't always want to hear from the solution. So when you just said, or somebody figures it out technologically, often someone who figures out how to do it differently is the biggest pariah in the eyes of the old order. And I see that in my presidential run, oh, she's talking about how to do it different she she would upset that corporate applecart. Don't let her in and civilize her erase her knock her off ballots.

Alex Ferrari 29:19
But also, though, but also now more than ever, there is opportunity through technology to get information out like this conversation that would have normally had to go through a gatekeeper. And now it doesn't, it's basically you get into millions of people access to hopefully millions of people and this conversation where before you would absolutely have to be in a go through a gatekeeper. You know, guard yourself, make sure you don't say the wrong thing or won't be air or these kinds of things. So there is movement towards that and I think it's again, these new systems that are coming up and And the old systems trying to hold on to the but I think something like the internet can't get right. You can't you can't wrangle in the internet now it's too late. I think,

Marianne Williamson 30:10
Of course, there are two things. First of all that is the conversation going on the sort of free speech on the internet question, inquiry, but also, in terms of political change. You can't it's impossible to overestimate or overstate the importance of mainstream media channels. You know, for younger people, like for instance, in my race, I can get younger people because they're on TikTok.

Alex Ferrari 30:37
Sure, on YouTube.

Marianne Williamson 30:41
If CNN is blacklisting you and MSNBC is blacklisting, you, those people's parents don't even know you're running. Right? So for younger people, yeah. But as important as they are in terms of a demographic and everything else. There are other people on the planet too. Who are getting news from mainstream media

Alex Ferrari 31:05
Without

Marianne Williamson 31:08
And also on the internet. The level of misrepresentation manipulation, oh, smear is massive, disturbing.

Alex Ferrari 31:25
Yeah, it's with any new technology, it's used, it's a hammer could kill or hammer could build. It's, it's all it's always like that with every tool.

Marianne Williamson 31:36
Yeah, the Course in Miracles says nothing in the material world is holy or unholy. Except as determined by the purpose that the mind is using it for. Exactly like you said, the internet is a perfect example. It's extraordinary. how helpful it can be an extraordinary how dangerous it can be out of AI,

Alex Ferrari 31:58
And that's a whole other candidates, that's people are still trying to figure it, I feel like AI is very much where we were in 1996 with the internet, it just nobody really knew was the Wild Wild West, things were happening so fast. And I think AI is just happening even faster than than the internet did. Because technology is faster. I just don't really know where it's all gonna go. There you can see the potential of good, you could also see the potential for not so good.

Marianne Williamson 32:25
You'd say the reality of good. Potential of negative is terrifying.

Alex Ferrari 32:33
Exactly. Exactly. Well, let me ask you, what role do you believe spirituality plays in politics and governance, in social leadership?

Marianne Williamson 32:46
The word politics comes from the root politeia. Well, the term means of the people. All that politics is is our collective behavior. So all we're talking about here is if the spiritual path which is nothing but the path of the heart, is core to right living individually. The path of the heart compassion, love, mercy, justice should also be the core, the ideal in our collective experience as well. Andy, you so religious, how could you be involved in politics, he said, is not politics part of Dharma too. Now, I wrote a book that came out at the late 90s called healing the soul of America. What I was interested in was the intersection of spirituality and politics. I had no idea that Marian that's not a wheel anybody has to invent. It was Mahatma Gandhi, he articulated a principle of spiritual political philosophy called non violence. Dr. Ching visited India learned those principles and brought them back to apply to the struggle for civil rights in the United States in the 1960s. So And much of what Gandhi was articulating he had gotten from the American transcendentalists, from Thoreau, and from the Quakers quite a bit. So Quakers the idea of an inner light within every man, woman and child. Now, you can also call that the Christ. You can also call it the buddha mind, you can call it but in the inner light within every man, woman and child. So what Gandhi said that inner light not only heals, personal relationships, it heals social, economic and political relationships as well. And then Dr. King said about Gandhi, that he was the first person in history he said, to take the ethic of love, beyond mere personal interaction, so that it could become a broad scale, social force for good so we know that hey, hatred is turned into a social force, a social force. That's what terrorism is. That's what ISIS is. That's what Hamas says, We need to counter that by turning love into a social and political force. And that's what the Indian independence movement was. That's what the civil rights movement was. And it's the only I think it's the only thing that will save us.

Alex Ferrari 35:26
Now, you mentioned before that, that we all need to do the, the right thing and do the inner work within ourselves. But how can we forgive, because so many people have a problem, you say, you know, forgive the person, we're talking about forgiving the person but looking inward at yourself. For someone who is listening to this conversation right now, and it is blowing their mind. It is like a nuclear bomb going off in their head, and they don't even know where to begin to do the inner work. What advice would you give them?

Marianne Williamson 36:04
Well, first of all, there are two things. Number one, who do you need to forgive. And if you would, forgiveness is the most powerful force in the universe. It's releasing someone you know, the Course in Miracles says, The warden can't leave the prison any more than the prisoner can stop holding people in the prison of your belief of how they should have behaved. Because as I said before, if you believe that someone in the reality of someone's guilt, then whatever they did to you, then you are dooming yourself to be at the effect of what they did to you. If you are willing to know that beyond their loveless behavior as the truth of who they are, and you're willing to extend your perceptions, beyond your perception of your guilt to the knowledge of their innocence, because you know that God put it there. The Universe recalibrates itself. I mean, that's the power of atonement and the power of forgiveness, that new literally, there's a breakthrough in synapses there. And the Course in Miracles talks about an intervention from a thought system beyond our own. And the way to do that is to be willing. So if everybody listening would just go, I think of who there's a line in the course that says you can have a grievance or you're gonna have a miracle, you cannot have both. So you think of the person or the situation, that you have a grievance around. And this is so interesting for me talking to you, you know, because and I, if you want to, if you want a challenge to all of this run for president, of course, as a woman, saying what they don't want you to say? Sure. So this is one of those times where you're always talking about yourself, but I really need, I really need to hear what I'm saying right now. Right. And the idea. And the idea is the Course in Miracles says the most powerful thing you can say is, I am willing to see this differently. Because how you perceive that's what you know, it's like you think of the universe's of as, like a GPS. So the universe is both self organizing and self self correcting. So if lovelessness has occurred, lovelessness on the part of someone else, or lovelessness, on your part, atoning for your part, forgiving others for theirs, it's like a GPS, it will recalibrate. And the universe will correct itself. But not if you're holding on to guilt about yourself or anyone else. You're gonna have the grievance with a miracle you cannot have,

Alex Ferrari 38:41
What I find fascinating about you, Marianne, is that you are not only running for president, but as you're running for president, you are running on a platform of essentially love. That is unheard of, in the political landscape that I can remember, at least in American politics.

Marianne Williamson 39:01
That is what Martin Luther King talked about. He said, It's time to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of human civilization. So it's actually not new. It's one guy was saying, and it was what Dr. King was say.

Alex Ferrari 39:14
Right. But Dr. King wasn't running for president. Because the difference is he a leader and

Marianne Williamson 39:19
You have to remember the historical moment.

Alex Ferrari 39:20
Of course, of course. Oh, no. If Dr. King would be around today, he would have obviously been running for some sort of political office, without question. With all the craziness that's happening in the world, Marianne, you know, for people who only can see that this world is falling apart. How can their own spirituality or A Course in Miracles help them deal with this turmoil that is happening in the world?

Marianne Williamson 39:55
Well, there are two things I'd like to point out one is the spiritual what you asked about But the other is the historical. This is not the first time things had been tough. Okay, and I think a reading of history, certainly the abolitionists had desperate tears. And surely the women's suffrage just had desperate tears. And the early labor organizers had desperate tears. And the civil rights workers had desperate days. So we're a little precious, we need to toughen up. But we're not going through anything others haven't gone through through, although the stakes are higher than they've ever been. But the level of resistance of the old order and what the old order would do to us if we dare to challenge it was no different than any other time. So that's number one. I always feel that you you look at history, it's important that we identify the problems and the shadows, but identify the problem with identify with the problem solvers. What were the character illogical aspects. Now, this is interesting, because if you look at all the great social justice movements in the United States, they were grounded in religious and spiritual principles. among white Americans, the beginning of the abolitionist movement, it emerged really early of angelical churches in New Hampshire. A lot of the women who were the leaders of this of the women's suffrage movement, were religious Quakers. And let's not forget that Dr. King was a Baptist preacher. So what are those character logical things? This is the essence of it. The spiritual life is faith in things as yet unseen. The idea that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, it is long, but it bends toward justice. And we're here to be the bandwidth of the art. If people want to look at it from a religious perspective. Yeah, we're in the middle of the crucifixion. But the resurrection is on its way. Yeah, we're in the middle of slavery in Egypt, but the Promised Land is out there. That's really the story of all the great religious and spiritual stories is that, yeah, the world weighs you down. No doubt about it. Nobody, nothing to be surprised about here. But that three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection, that 40 years, between slavery and promised land has to do with the change in consciousness, that brings forth the resurrection, the promised land, the historical change, abolition, women's suffrage, desegregation, and so forth. That's why Dr. King said that the desegregation of the American South was the political externalization of the goal of the civil rights movement, but that the ultimate goal is the establishment of the beloved community. Because where there is love, miracles occur naturally and the universe organizes and corrects itself. Until we get there. Even if we desegregated segregate, there's going to be something else as evidence now. Okay, so we desegregated that's great. But also now look what we have. We have mass incarceration. We have other elements, you know, that stuff's not back until we, we get to the root of the malevolence of hearts, that gives rise to such material manifestation.

Alex Ferrari 43:18
Do you do you see that a lot of the things that have happened over the last decade or so that the ugliness that is kind of coming up out of the dark out of the shadows, the concept of racism, where at once it was something you whispered in the corner of a party, and now people lead with, Hey, I'm racist, and put in a public forum, do you believe that all of this has to be shown that it has to come out into the light, so it can be healed. So we can be kind of recognized as a society as a as a consciousness to reckon with these ideas, and then hopefully put light on them.

Marianne Williamson 43:58
On one hand, there is a line even in the course that you cannot bring the light to the darkness, the darkness must be brought to the light. But if the Darkness is brought to the light, and then not surrendered for healing, it doesn't automatically he'll it could just become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So when I was growing up, what you're saying is so true. It's not like there weren't racist. There weren't homophobes. There weren't anti Semites. And so for sure, it was. They were the effort was always to keep those things asymptomatic. Not that they ever always were but nothing like the explosion of today. But there was a sense of guardrails. And you had a sense. First of all, there would seem to be a general consensus. We're not supposed to be those things. And number two, definitely a sense that no major political party would give a megaphone to such voices as that And then two things happen. And they happen almost simultaneously. And they've caused all hell to break loose. Number one, the internet and social media, which gives the most vile voices, a megaphone and a platform. And a particular malignant narcissist is not above stoking all of those things for his own political purposes, because his son in law suggests that it would be a way to become president.

Alex Ferrari 45:30
But this part is just part of the healing process, though, is the question. Like you were saying, what is it? Is it part of the healing process? Like you were saying, you know, this is happening now. But you know, the crucifixion is now but the resurrection is coming around the corner.

Marianne Williamson 45:47
You have to be careful, because the symbolic three years could be three years, it could also be 3000 years, we're not careful. Will it ultimately come back around to love? Yes, but remember, there were people who said gonna vote for Hiller because everybody will see how bad it is. So not dangerous, we're human will comes in. And so what's faded, is ultimately there will be this return to love, what's Free Will what Free Will determines is how long this is going to take. And we should not kid ourselves. It's like when my environmentalist friends. Remember, somebody said to me once, Maryam, you don't have to be so upset about climate change. Because let me tell you something, if it gets bad enough, the Earth is just going to kick off this predatory species for a couple 100,000 years, so it's all gonna be okay. Then you think about the level of human and other species suffering that would occur. All of the genius, the brilliance and the beauty of human civilization destroyed. And something in you says no, not on my watch. And that's the moment we have to get to. And we have and that's the shift not only for us spiritually, but just in terms of our social maturity to go from, oh, that's not good. And I don't agree with it to not on my watch. And that was the critical mass the difference with abolition, women's suffrage civil rights, when you go from Oh, that's really terrible a lot on agree with it to not on my watch.

Alex Ferrari 47:23
I have to ask you, how do you stay grounded spiritually going through this process of running for President because you are being the energy that is coming towards you is pretty intense, both in the positive and in the negative? How do you stay grounded? How do you continue to keep moving forward in that environment?

Marianne Williamson 47:44
Somebody said to me the other day Roger wall said you're a Rorschach test. I never experienced anything like that in my career before this. The emotional highs and lows are even for me you know astrological sign is cancer. And so I understand moodiness, and I've, I would my response would be meditate in the morning, do the Course of Miracles Workbook. I do TM. But this is just it's like this sometimes in the space of a short period of time, but I have lived enough to know. Remember that movie Sideways?

Alex Ferrari 48:24
Of course.

Marianne Williamson 48:25
If you remember something about did you? Is that where the whole drink and dial thing came from? I can't think so. I think so. Yeah. There was a Merleau thing to not text not tweet. Not saying why you're feeling this way. Right. That's a big one. Because literally running for president. Anything, anything? You have one sentence where okay, maybe I shouldn't have said that way. That way, put on the internet put on tick tock viral to a million people and your support because people conclude from that that you think this right. And a lot of irrational animus towards me. Irrational gives me a lot more feeling about Hillary Clinton was a big burly person. And I certainly came to have divergent political opinions from Hillary. But I never understood the personal animus towards her. It just was like, No, I don't agree with that. But she's gone one direction and I've gone another. But I didn't feel the need for personal animus particularly because I'm old enough to remember it when the Clintons started and Concha ality she had before she became so tough and also you can come to understand why she became tough. Energy coming at her It's difficult not to take it personally. People say don't take it personally. But it's so hard. I see the guys are better at that. Nikki Haley said the other day on TVs and they're like, Well, I'm not thin skinned. I don't take it personally. That's what I've got to work on. Because it's, it's painful.

Alex Ferrari 50:18
I'm going to ask you a few questions. I ask all my guests. What is your definition of living a fulfilled life?

Marianne Williamson 50:23
Peace that comes from being able to look in your yourself in the mirror at the end of the day, and knowing you did your best. So somebody's life is better today, because of something you did or said.

Alex Ferrari 50:38
If you had a chance to go back in time and talk to little Marianne, what advice would you give her?

Marianne Williamson 50:43
Relax and also, like, this is a big thing for older women. It's a big thing among older women, that we look at pictures of ourselves with our 20s and 30s, even 40s. And we go, I thought that was inadequate. So a lot of younger women, older women are like, You looked so much better than you think you do. And that's, of course, is exacerbated. Now. I mean, I'm really worried about the young girls on the internet, and

Alex Ferrari 51:11
But don't go too far. Guys. I mean, guys are falling for that as well. I look, I remember looking back in my 20s or pictures when I was a teenager, and I remember what I thought of myself back then. And I'm like, I was like, Man, I would have killed for that.

Marianne Williamson 51:31
I know, okay, it's not just women. Yeah, blacks, and it took and also, you know, I do love talking to younger women, I talk to you a woman a lot. And I don't think any phase of life is better than another. And I look at younger women are so self taught a young friend of mine, she's, she's in her 30s. The other day. I look at younger women, they have things I don't have anymore. But I have things they don't have yet. So I'm I'm at peace with that for myself. But I do remind them a lot. I know you can't believe this. But that will not last forever. Enjoy every minute of it. Enjoy every minute of it, because it's not going to last forever. And I remember when my sister died, my sister died very young 44. And people ask me about my sister. And I would say my regret is not just that I didn't know her longer, but that I didn't know her better. That I didn't. I remember my sister's deathbed was like a day or so before she died. And she, I'm sitting here my sister's there. My brother's at the end of the bed. She's sitting up in her bed. And my sister had that kind of Buddha light around her before she died that a lot of I've seen around dying people before. And choose in this calm, really altered, beautiful place. And I'm crying and my brother miss. It's tough. And I had this. I said we didn't we forgot we we forgot to do it. I had this recognition. She was my sister. He was my brother, we were siblings in this lifetime. And we hadn't sucked the juice. Out of all that that could mean and all the things we could have been to one another. Like if I called my sister at that time in our lives. And I'd said why don't you and Peter and I go out to dinner at night to have dinner with you. I've got three little girls or not What are you talking about? We you know what I'm saying? And I got that we it was almost like we forgot to do it. And my brother totally understood what I was saying. And he nodded his head. And then my sister said it's okay. We're doing it right now.

Alex Ferrari 53:59
That's beautiful. Um, how do you define God or source energy?

Marianne Williamson 54:04
The Course in Miracles says love is beyond what can be taught. But it the the it says the course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love for that is beyond what can be taught. It aims to remove the barriers to the awareness of love's presence. All words are but symbols. But all of us had been there. Usually at somebody's breast it was your mother's breast, your father's breast or your lover's breasts. We've had those moments. That was it. What is love? Who We Are All that matters?

Alex Ferrari 54:43
And what is the ultimate purpose of life?

Marianne Williamson 54:45
The purpose of life is the healing of this world. You know, in Judaism, there's the term to Kuno long to repair the world to make ourselves available. Use my hands use my feet Use me use whatever my skill set is, might be a podcast, it might be writing a book, it might be running for office might be having a child, it might be at getting married. I think citizenship is an aspect of your shared assignment. I think, you know, in the human body, one, sperm and egg come together, sometimes more, right. And out of that comes this multiplication of cells. And there's a natural intelligence within every cell. And they start multiplying and traveling and they become eyeballs and fingernails, and liver, and heart and skin and hair. The cells know what to do. And they are led to one another, because then the cells collaborate with one another, to form the heart, the stomach, the abdomen, and then they keep collaborating just like your cells in your body right now collaborating, so that you can breathe, so that you can see, so that you can hear. Now, every once in a while, cells disconnect from their collaborative purpose. They go insane, they forget that they're not here for themselves. They forget that they're here to collaborate with other selves to serve the organ that serves the highest functioning of the whole. And instead, they go off by themselves, I don't want to serve the liver, I want to go do my own thing, to get other selves, who are similarly only wanting to do our thing, and that's a malignancy. It's seeing the body and it's a malignancy in consciousness, that is what has happened to the human race. We've been infected by a malignant consciousness, and that consciousness is, it's all about me. And anytime you see it, whether you see it in politics, whether you see it in pseudo spirituality, it's all about me. That's the cancer. And we are here to heal from that.

Alex Ferrari 57:05
Now, where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing in this world?

Marianne Williamson 57:08
Thank you. Thank you, Marianne2024.com, for the political, Marianne2024.com. And also for people who are interested in all of the spiritual senses. There's a podcast that deals with that go to marianne.com. I'm around.

Alex Ferrari 57:28
And do you have any parting messages for the audience?

Marianne Williamson 57:31
Thank you, thank you to those who have supported my campaign so far. I hope that those who see the urgency of turning things around and giving birth to a better world and to see that you can't leave politics out of that. I hope that people will go to Marianne2024.com. Support the campaign in any way possible. If we, you know, when it comes to consciousness and spirituality, there's nothing we've taught that we haven't transformed. We've transformed the conversation around healing. We've transformed the conversation around education, we've transformed the conversation around the body, we've transformed the conversation of everything. The only reason we haven't transformed politics, is because we haven't gone there yet. So I hope those who feel that a more transformational heart centered politics is the way to make a radical turn around and another direction and an openness to a better, more beautiful world. We'll check out my candidacy, and to do what I can to help.

Alex Ferrari 58:46
Marianne, thank you so much for this amazing conversation. I do hope it I hope it helps somebody out there watching so I appreciate you and what you're trying to do for the World. Thank you so much my dear.

Marianne Williamson 58:55
Right back at you. Thank you.