Motivational speaker and long-shot presidential candidate Marianne Williamson firmly rejected the notion that her unique views on spirituality sound like Scientology during a Friday night interview on Real Time with Bill Maher.
“How can you even say that?” Williamson said to the comedian in response to the allegation.
“My career for the last 35 years, I have given talks based on this set of books called A Course in Miracles, which has been referred to as a ‘self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy,'” Williamson said of her belief structure.
“It sounds like Scientology,” Maher said of her description, further expressing skepticism of her beliefs, which are based on books. Maher, an outspoken atheist, is often critical of religion and spirituality.
“It is a book that is based on universal spiritual themes. It is not a religion; it does not claim any kind of monopoly on truth. It has no dogma; it has no doctrine,” Williamson retorted.
Williamson also defended her views and teachings based on A Course in Miracles, when Maher asserted that the author, Helen Schucman, had once claimed to have taken dictation from Jesus.
“Well there’s nothing in the book … maybe she did,” Williamson said, “the book says nothing about that. The book does not try to get us to believe in God … the book tries to get us to believe in each other.”
Williamson, who said on the Tuesday debate stage in Detroit that “dark, psychic forces” had torn the country apart, later posted an image of herself as Game of Thrones character Melisandre, a controversial sorceresses known to channel dark forces to manipulate and kill other characters.
