The Marianne Williamson Presidential Phenomenon

I wish I could recall who was the first friend and/or colleague it was who, around 1993 or so, said to me, as I was sitting in the In Search of Fearlessness Center and Research Institute probably writing out quotes on fear and fearlessness from my library collection, “Hey, you might want to check out the work of Marianne Williamson; she writes about Love and Fear.” After that, history unfolded, and I am ever grateful to that person for making this connection. I also wish I could recall the exact moment of inspiration that my unconscious spoke to my conscious mind, “Hey, Marianne is running for the Democratic party leadership and hoping to be President, maybe you ought to follow her journey.” I thank Marianne Williamson for stepping up to the plate and making her voice better known in a dangerous time, where the ancient wisdom she knows well may find a new home in the contemporary political sphere. I want to acknowledge all the journalists, writers, podcasters, bloggers who have contributed indirectly to this book, as their articles and interviews, be they more pro or con, offered me quick access to important information I could harvest. Your work made mine a whole lot richer and easier.

Thanks to Rob Asghar for working with me and trusting my intentions for this book. I appreciated from the start you saw through my sometimes fervent critiques of Williamson’s campaign and American society. You saw below the surface, where good critique is ultimately a beginning stage for possible offerings to improve leadership and politics in this world. Your Foreword as a poetic and poignant story is meant to be told—it is exactly an example of one of the co-creating aspects of what I have labeled the Marianne Williamson Phenomenon.

Lastly, I thank my readers, Barbara Bickel, Dan McKinnon, Nonye T. Aghanya, Randy Auxier, and Sheldon Solomon. Your gracious offering to hang-in there with my manuscript as it was taking shape inspired me to continue. And to Rafiq (aka Robert Sean Lewis), Madelainne K. Joss, Robert Sardello, David Spangler, Jack Miller your encouraging early insights helped; and an especially big hug and appreciation to Elizabeth Lange for your nuanced comments for improving my nascent journal article draft soon to be finished in the months ahead, “Marianne Williamson: Adult Educator in Dark Times.”

It has been said that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Some have ascribed this aphorism to the 18th century political philosopher Edmund Burke, others to the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, and it may well represent an imprecise amalgam of their ideas. It has nonetheless become a common trumpet call for people of goodwill to enter the political arena.

The paradox, as Dr. Fisher and others have observed, is that Williamson’s political style represents a sharp break with the idyllic spiritual other-worldliness of A Course in Miracles, and with her own lesser politically imbued past.

I first saw Williamson speak in 1988. She was building an immense grassroots following in Los Angeles. For several years, I attended her weekly talks and acquired cassette tapes of her lessons to ponder while on my unending L.A. commutes. I was impressed with the rigor of her spiritual knowledge and practice—the unconditional acceptance of others, the refusal to judge, and especially the remarkable emphasis on preemptive forgiveness.

For Williamson and The Course, the suffering of the world represented a delusional misunderstanding of true reality and an unwillingness to yield to its higher dimensions. At that moment in her journey, her motto could have been, roughly, “If you’re angry and outraged by others, you’re not paying attention to the truth about them or about yourself.”

After making it a point to attend her talks again years later, paradoxically, I heard her repeatedly point to political and social strife and say, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” She justified this as love’s moral outrage. By that stage, she had run a failed 2014 congressional campaign, was beginning to become an avid campaigner for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, and was only a few years away from launching her own bid for national office.

This is not to say that her new worldview was unjustifiable, but mainly to point out that it represents a u-turn from the discipline of unconditional acceptance that she promoted and preached for years.

But prophets on the whole do not tend to make good leaders, because theirs is the role of the uncompromising critic, while leaders of institutions must accommodate the moral messiness of the world each new morning, choosing to lose some fights in order to win others. “There are no Mother Teresas in this business,” a successful, long-time university president once told me. “We’re all a bunch of whores, compromising our principles all the time just to make it to the next day.”

The moral compromises of conventional organizational leadership are even more pronounced—as humans have noticed and rued for thousands of years—within the fragrant muck of contemporary divisive politics.

What shall we make of the person who believes she can enter into the muck and change it without being changed by it? Is such a person noble or naive? Dr. Fisher’s inquiry invites us to engage these kinds of questions, and encourages us not to choose only one or the other as simple binaries, but more to approach, with fragile sensitivity, a path of critical inquiry that holds the noble and naive as always close cousins.

*****

Yet these traditions are other-worldly for a reason. Williamson calls for an “integrative” approach, spirituality and politics, other-worldly and worldly, based on love; yet her own political journey shows how difficult this is to achieve.

Notes

[S]omething has gone seriously wrong with everyone’s [security] images and models.

So, I have prepared myself to write about the tense situation. What things I critique about America or Americans in this text are arrows that could just as easily u-turn and be applicable to Canada or myself. I have come to terms with that, and with that responsibility at hand, no matter what reactions come toward the book, my country or me, I’ll assume they have some justifiable cause. As an educator by profession, I am committed to learn from the arrows what I can. It is a cliché: America has the best and the worst. America has fascinating, and troubling, leaders. Yet, I prod and push around that saying “the best and the worst” for more juice than it typically delivers. I loathe stereotypes and their ability to freeze out authentic dialogue and inquiry for deeper truths beneath the surface of things. Williamson and I share that pet peeve and interest.

For nearly 30 years, I have been aware of her philosophy and ambitions. Like Rob Asghar (Foreword), and many others, I have pondered systematically her leadership trajectory, and simultaneously questioned my own, including the validity of my ideas and actions: Have I made my life purposeful in a useful way to the betterment of our species and the planet’s ecological health and sustainability for seven generations? Could I have done better? To assess my life I have had to compare it to role models, whom I (and others) consider those of highest quality as great images of (s)heroes. The fact Williamson was born in my generation and in the same year is more than a little compelling to make comparisons.

Compelling or not, I have neither written this book for me, nor for Williamson either. It is especially for those who have followed her for years and/or in the 2020 American election cycle, be they fans or enemies or in between—they and their numbers are growing and substantive. They have the real power to speak out, vote, and to carry on a movement bringing forward the best of what humans can be. For fans or enemies, I believe there are provocative lessons from all life events. The phenomenon I write of here which has grown in and around Williamson is remarkable. And, it is in that reality of remarkability that it also requires in depth analysis and documentation. There are critical lessons awaiting, some already known, many not yet revealed. As researcher-writer-journalist, I put my finger on the jugular vein as I synthesize one story of what has happened and, I speculate what may still happen. I look through the lens of the Marianne Williamson Presidential Phenomenon as a whole system of complex interrelations—an ecology of deep values, beliefs, worldviews and thinking—stirring and clashing—now that, is what intrigues me most.

What has been, and still is, happening around her? Ultimately, I have written this book for history (not just American history), which is unfolding in flames right now, and a whole lot of us are feeling and thinking our way through this challenge of living and dying in the Anthropocene era of major cascading global crises—whether, you believe they are “man-made” or not—whether you believe our species extinction is immanent or not. With the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic “on” at the moment of completing this book, there is no one who is free from being affected (even President Donald Trump and his “no mask” iconography). And, there is no one who is not sensing our species is in big trouble if we don’t make some major changes in the way we carry on “business” and governance and the average life-style of the modern citizen. Of course, interpretations of the causes of that big trouble will line up along a wide spectrum of differences—and “isms” and conflicts. Yet, there are common views still to be harvested amongst that battle and blame-game politics.

I can only speak to North America(ns) and somewhat the West and North globally, because that’s where I have lived, researched, and dedicated my existence to caring for a home for my children and grandchild. And, that’s where I have come to know the greater-than-human species that have been around many times longer than I have—my wise ancestors on this land. I give thanks to their enabling me to have come to this privileged place, and time, and may they offer me the spirit of fearlessness to carry forth a “good message,” even if I have made errors in delivering it. This book was created quickly due to historical events, so it is not perfectly everything I would want to say, and my writing ability to express deep thoughts and feelings are also thus compromised no doubt by my analytic and individual (poor working class) style at times, my lack of training and a top-notch education in the elite higher education schools, and my own agendas at times that may get in the way. All that, nonetheless, I offer this book as a guide to the future and with intention that it may be non-partisan politically, religiously, ideologically.

Writing about history and politics, which this current book is about, has not been my usual course of study and action to bring about positive change, restoration and healing, with possibilities of transformation and liberation for our species. Writing about religion and spirituality, which this book is also about, has likewise not been my specialty. Yet, I wanted to play intellectual biographer, journalist and write a good case study, a good story, of a fascinating person, a great leader. When I reflect on articles and books I have written (not always published) since the early 1970s that I loved doing most, they were books on special topics and species: wild orchids, polar bears, great blue herons, snowy owls, great educators (outside of the field of Education proper), Ken Wilber, Four Arrows, and now Marianne Williamson. I love studying the ecology of predators, and sacred warriors.

Many have criticized me for poking holes in some of the best leaders of the progressive community (Wilber, Four Arrows, Williamson), and I have wondered why I do that. Why don’t I just criticize the opponents on the other-side? I think it is because they are too easy of a target, and it’s boring. I am more interested in the subtle “faults” of my-side, that is, the progressives—because, I have seen lots to admire but lots to challenge as well. I guess I want my-side to “grow up” and mature as best it can to better be able to engage with the other-side—for only then, really, will our species and culture as a whole make much progress. Opposites become complementarities, that is, an ancient law of my ancestors. That’s the main assumption for my writing projects. And, with Williamson, I have risked more than with the other books because she is a fairly well-known celebrity and more so has stepped up onto the political stage of American politics and history. It must be a vulnerable thing to do for her and it certainly feels vulnerable for me to write about her and the phenomenon she’s become part of.