Enlightened Perspectives: Marianne Williamson: Evolving Out of Darkness

Marianne Williamson has been at the forefront of transformational spirituality for four decades, ever since her first book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles was catapulted onto The New York Times bestseller list (with help from Oprah Winfrey), selling 3 million copies to date. It was the first of four such best-sellers. The dynamic teacher, author, and political activist was renowned in the early ’90s for her popular Los Angeles lectures and through her work as an AIDS activist. She founded the nonprofit Project Angel Food in 1989 to deliver meals to people with HIV/AIDS. Williamson has also gotten involved with politics, running for president in 2020 and 2024. She recently met with contributing editor Karen Brailsford on Zoom to discuss her latest book, The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love.

Marianne Williamson is the best-selling author of 16 books, including her latest: The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love, published last May. She lectures widely, teaches online courses, and has a Substack called Transform. Visit marianne.com.

Karen Brailsford: Before our call I realized my Jesus clock wasn’t ticking, so I changed the battery!

Marianne Williamson: Wow!

KB: He’s knocking at a door. It hung in the living room when I was growing up. Then last year, two decades later, my sister found it.

MW: I have things that belonged to my mother as well, and when I look at them now I wonder who she was then. Now I think on how your mother had this Jesus clock around her little girls.

KB: Our paths have crossed several times—at your lectures, at Agape International Spiritual Center, and at a spiritual conference in India. You’re a part of the web that is my life.

MW: There really is no separation. There is a web, and Jesus is one name for that web. He is the entirety of the web. He is not just in a relationship with me. He’s not just in a relationship with you. That’s a core principle when you transform from the notion that one “only begotten Son” means only Jesus. “Only begotten Son” means we’re all it. There is no place where one stops and another starts. What’s that John Donne quote? “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

KB: Why Jesus now?

MW: When as children we learned about evolution, we were told if a species begins to exhibit behavior that is maladaptive for its survival, the species will either evolve in a new direction or it will go extinct. And when the path of evolution is taken, it’s always because there’s the introduction of a mutation. Some member of the species demonstrates a more sustainable way of being. My belief is that humanity is now at such a point. Our collective behavioral patterns have moved from dysfunctional to malfunctional. If we do not evolve, we will not survive. The way we treat the earth and each other and the way we are disconnected from our own deeper knowing have placed us on a trajectory that the secretary-general of the United Nations says is not survivable for our grandchildren. Jesus, along with other great religious avatars, represents that mutation. Whether it is the enlightenment of Buddha under the Bodhi tree, the arrival of the Israelites in the Promised Land, or the resurrection of Jesus, we are told how not only to endure the darkness, but also to transform it. I can’t think of anything more relevant in a practical sense to our experience of life today.

KB: There’s the historical Jesus and the symbolic Jesus. What do you say to the person who thinks Jesus is the only way?

MW: Nobody has a monopoly on truth. The point of a free society is that everybody gets to look at things the way they look at them. As long as they’re not perpetrating violence and hatred, who am I to judge? I would say to anyone about anything I write, “See if it speaks to you. If not, put it down. And if it does speak to you, what an honor.” My book is not in any way meant to disparage or undercut the notion of religious doctrine and dogma that is based on the life of the historical Jesus. As we become more psychologically and internally astute, we appreciate greater dimensions to the great religious stories. There are mental images we all share that Carl Jung called archetypes. The mystic notion of the Christ mind is that if you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mine, we share one mind. So we begin to look at words such as “Christ” not just in terms of one man who lived 2,000 years ago. He is eternally alive in our psyches, as a presence we all share.

KB: Seeing you teach, I’ve been struck by how compassionate and open you are.

MW: A Course in Miracles says people hear you on the level that you speak to them from. So, if I’m speaking from my own deeper truth, the deeper truth in other people is more likely to hear me and understand. I also think honesty matters; you learn from your failures as well as your successes. Sometimes sharing insights I got from doing something wrong can be valuable, because stories like that are relatable. I was thinking recently about an unwise decision I made years ago; I didn’t wake up that morning and say, “Today I want to be a jerk.” At the time the decision seemed like the right thing to do. We all make mistakes, and it’s easier to forgive ourselves when we’re reminded how hard it can be sometimes to get it right. Truth is simple, but life is complicated.

The words disciple and discipline are from the same root. If every morning I proactively direct energy in the direction of all that is good, beautiful, and holy—Jesus being someone that the mind automatically recognizes as the actualization of that—I am opening myself to that potential within me. It doesn’t mean that I’ll be an enlightened master all day but it means my chances of falling off the wagon spiritually are greatly diminished—and when I do fall off, I’m much more likely to get right back on.

A Course in Miracles says the word Jesus automatically reminds the mind of the relationship between the Father and the Son. You are reminded of not just his higher self, but your higher self. It’s taking that traditional Christian term and looking at it through a mystical lens. Again, the “only begotten Son” means we’re all it. Even scientists tell us there’s a unified field.

You notice this in sports. Once somebody runs a race faster, that possibility opens for the next person. Marconi in Italy is sometimes credited with discovering radio waves, but then someone else in another place discovered them around the same time. This has its negatives as well as its positives. When ego floods the field as it does now—the toxicity in our politics, for instance, or on social media—all of us pick up the anger in the field. That’s why we have to exercise the discipline, or discipleship, of aligning our attitudinal muscles toward a proactive dedication to the good, the beautiful, and the holy.

KB: You’ve said it’s important to pray for people we don’t like.

MW: I’ve had experiences, particularly running for political office, where I was confronted by someone who did not bring respect. That’s when the universe was asking, “How are you doing with this? Can you keep your heart open now?” Life gives you the lessons you need, and what could be a bigger lesson for someone dedicated to love than to have to confront lovelessness? You can’t suppress your lovelessness. It’s like a detox; things have to come up in order to be released. Last night I was moving through some things having to do with my presidential campaign, where I still feel a level of resentment or bitterness or embarrassment or feelings of injustice or anger.

That’s really the story of your Jesus clock. He is knocking at the door, meaning, “I can come in and help, but only if you invite me, because if you don’t invite me, it’s a violation of your free will.” We can hold onto the negativity if we want to, but he is there to take it from us if we are willing to release it. The prayer I found myself saying was, “Save me from myself.” Gandhi said the problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind. We’re not in our right mind individually or collectively, and the resurrection is a return to our right mind.

KB: Were you able to return to your right mind last night?

MW: Yes, and I experienced great peace. But that doesn’t mean that something won’t tempt me tomorrow. Personal growth, spiritual growth, transformation, enlightenment—it’s all a journey. We have moments where we get it right, and then another moment comes and we get it wrong.

Whichever it is, what we do with our minds affects more than just us. A Course in Miracles says when you have a miraculous shift in your own perception, you create miraculous possibilities in places you’ll never even know about. Take Israel and Palestine. In the United States people tend to see the situation as black and white: “I am for these people, and I’m against those people.” That’s using our minds to keep alive the conflict, the belief in separation—and that’s the problem! A Course in Miracles says God does not give you victory in battle; he lifts you above the battlefield. God loves everyone equally and so should we. There’s the Rumi poem—“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” That is the only place where we can meet. The miracle worker refuses to use the mind in a way that contributes to the violence.

Social change doesn’t happen because the majority wakes up; it happens when a critical mass wakes up. The majority didn’t say, “Let’s free enslaved peoples” or “Let’s give women the right to vote” or “Let’s end segregation.” Change always begins with a small group of people, usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time, who present that evolutionary mutation, who stand for a better way, for another possibility. Nothing is more needed now, and that goes back to your question, “Why Jesus now?” For some people, Jesus is that portal to a new possibility. A Course in Miracles says he’s one name on the door—and if he’s yours, you know it. But that doesn’t mean there are not others. The door, the portal itself, is unconditional love and compassion.

KB: I love the story you’ve told of Jesus at the cocktail party.

MW: I assume it was a waking dream of some sort. I’d gone through a tragic time and said to God, “If you will lift me out of this, I will spend the rest of my life serving you.” I was very sincere. I had a very strong sense that Jesus was accompanying me during my suffering. But as I began to heal, I wrote a Dear John letter to God. It was like, “Listen, I really appreciate you having been here for me, but I think there are other people who need you now.” I was telling Jesus to skedaddle! Then at a cocktail party in Houston, I walked into this room where three men in tuxedos were holding whiskey glasses. One turned to me. It’s Jesus. He says, “I thought we had a deal.” Whether it was a waking dream of a spontaneous enlightenment experience or just a moment of clarity, I don’t know. But that moment changed my life.

KB: And you never looked back?

MW: My work has been a profound blessing on me. It’s given my life meaning and purpose. No, I have never looked back. I continue to be amazed and grateful.

KB: Why are you here, Marianne?

MW: To give love, to extend God’s love. That’s what we were created for. We get into trouble when we think, I’m here to be an actress, or a writer or a scientist or an artist or whatever. Those things are form, but the content is what matters. Our purpose is to be a ray of light, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing. To embody love and compassion. To show up the best we can. To be a space of possibility for ourselves and others. That can be a whole lot easier said than done, of course.

Jesus is like a guide, a teacher, an elder brother who can help us if we ask. He doesn’t force himself onto our thoughts. He’s knocking on the door, but we determine whether or not we let him in. When you ask Jesus into a situation, you’re asking him to guide your thoughts about the situation—to help you let love replace fear, blessing replace blame, understanding replace judgment, and so forth. In some situations, this is not so difficult. In others, extremely so. Having his guidance helps. His mind, joined with our mind, shines away the ego. And that’s the miracle.

KB: I believe that ultimately love wins, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen in my lifetime.

MW: This time we are in now is the symbolic three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Who knows how long that three days is going to be? From the perspective of Buddhism, it doesn’t matter whether we live to see it. All that matters is the effort we make in the time we have here. Once I was walking through the redwood trees in Northern California. The North American continent was once covered with them. Only two percent are left here now, all because of an army general who became so enamored of the trees that he bought up property and put it in a trust so they could never be cut down. When I heard that story, I thought of all the joy those trees bring to people, and I thought, Wherever he is, his soul must tingle. Susan B. Anthony didn’t live to see the passage of the 19th Amendment, but every time a woman votes, her soul must tingle. The great cathedrals of Europe were built by hand over hundreds of years. Workers would know they weren’t going to see the church completed in their lifetime. But they lived for the possibility. When you are in your right mind, you’re serving the ages. Whether the task is completed in your lifetime isn’t relevant. There’s an old rabbinical saying: “You’re not expected to complete the task, but neither are you permitted to abandon it.”

This article appeared in the May/June 2025 issue of Spirituality & Health^®: A Unity Publication. Subscribe now.